Grass-Fed Beef for a Post-Pandemic World

Book excerpt: How can we learn from our mistakes and pave a way for sustainable, nutritious, local meat? The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the vulnerabilities of our globalized food system and highlighted the desperate need for local and regional supplies of healthy meat. We must replace corn-based feedlots, which are responsible for significant climate emissions, nitrogen pollution, and animal suffering. Grass-Fed Beef for a Post-Pandemic World outlines a hopeful path out of our broken food system via regional networks of regeneratively produced meat. In 2017, Ridge Shinn and Lynne Pledger went to market with Big Picture Beef, a company that partners with farmers across the Northeast to increase access to wholesale markets while promoting holistic grazing management techniques. The result? Increased health benefits for consumers, the environment, and livestock. In Grass Fed-Beef for a Post-Pandemic World, you’ll find information assembled from the fields of ecology, climate science, nutrition, and animal welfare, along with on-the-farm stories from Ridge’s travels as a consultant all over the United States and abroad. You’ll discover how regenerative grazing can: • restore degraded farmland • protect against droughts and floods • increase biodiversity • combat climate change by reducing emissions and sequestering carbon • contribute to regional economic development • produce nutrient-dense, healthy meat for consumers Grass-Fed Beef for a Post-Pandemic World is not just for beef producers, but for anyone wondering how our farmers and ranchers can raise cattle while also caring for the local and global environment.