The Lifeboat News
[ Message Archive | The Lifeboat News ]

    @ margo, re: Allan Savory Archived Message

    Posted by mack on February 5, 2019, 8:07 pm

    Hi margo

    Sorry for slow reply, but thought this may be of interest with regard to your query about Allan Savory's 'holistic management' approach to livestock rearing and attendant claims to mitigate AGW.

    I looked at this stuff a while back - though not in huge detail - and was sceptical to say the least. I think that scepticism was well founded after looking at some of the claims, which turned out to be more a case of wishful thinking (imv).
    It's hard to understand what Savory's motivation for these claims are - though the holistic approach certainly can (and does) work: it simply means a careful planned approach to grazing which rotates livestock around separated pockets of land, to allow for regeneration. This does work...BUT...only up to a certain scale and that scale is pretty small. Savory makes claims that larger scale - with greater numbers of animals on larger tracts of land are what is required. There is no evidence to support that.

    Here's a link to a critical review of Savory's claims:

    https://www.fcrn.org.uk/research-library/holistic-management-%E2%80%93-critical-review-allan-savory%E2%80%99s-grazing-method

    Holistic management (not Savory's particular brand) should be seen as one tool of many, rather than the cure-all; and the kind of scale where it does work is exemplified in Mark Shepard's Restoration Agriculture project in Wisconsin.
    Mark incorporates holistic management with keyline design, agroforestry and permaculture design and principles on his 106 acre New Forest farm - an altogether more promising approach than Savory's.

    https://newforestfarm.us/
    Hope that's of interest/use.

    Cheers


    Message Thread: