Nobody kills animals for the environment or because they care about dirt, they kill animals for profit, greed, gluttony, taste.  Just own it because the disingenuous “sacrificing of ethics” for the betterment of soil is transparently, ridiculously, false. 

It’s like one of those “healthy soda” ads where people pretend to drink soda because it’s healthy.  But honestly, they don’t…because it’s not.  People may believe such, and it may make drinking soda seem like a positive nutritional choice, but it’s not true, it’s just the subconscious rationalization of people’s poor choices: “Damn, I really don’t want to vape, but it’s so much healthier than smoking…”

Humans like to invent excuses that provide themselves comfort for doing “bad” things; but many times, those choices affect others beyond personal orbits, such as killing animals.  

Earth doesn’t need the festering decomp, blood, bones, disease, fecal matter, violent suffering, etc., of millions/billions/trillions of killed animals to achieve environmental nirvana.

It’s unethical and dangerous to think, and to misinform others, of such.

SL

The Truth About Regenerative Animal Grazing

By Jordi Casamitjana

Source VeganFTA

Jordi Casamitjana, author of the book Ethical Vegan, debunks the concept of Regenerative Animal Grazing, which is greenwashing modern animal agriculture.

We are starting to have an impact.

If we combine vegans and environmentalists, we may already have exceeded 20% of the human population, so our opinion begins to make a difference. Not a lot of difference in terms of solving environmental and animal rights problems yet, but enough of an impact that animal exploitation industries are beginning to panic, and they are mobilising funds and resources to attack us and counter our arguments. 

They are getting quite clever these days. They know that our arguments are far more solid than theirs and that, morally, they don’t have a leg to stand on, so they are using clever tactics to blur the issues, infiltrate our ranks and platforms, and appropriate our most popular narratives. The result of this is what we call “greenwashing”.

Greenwashing is the deceptive practice of conveying a false impression or providing misleading information about how an industry, company, service, or practice is environmentally sound. The term originated in the 1980s when environmentalists’ protests began annoying polluting companies, and it was first coined by American environmentalist Jay Westerveld in a 1986 essay about a hotel in Fiji. Today, greenwashing can take various forms, including misleading labels, vague environmental claims, and symbolic performative gestures that don’t address the entity’s core environmental issues. 

The animal agriculture industry is one of the most environmentally degrading industries in the world, and one of the most effective forms of greenwashing it is currently using —  because it seems to be quite practiced at deceiving the public — is “reforming” themselves, as if they heard our concerns, creating new concepts that sound very green, using research to show that their new and improved methods of exploiting farm animals are now good for the environment (or, at the very least, not as bad as their standard practices), and selling the entire thing as “progress” and “natural” (even though in reality the new practices are as damaging to the environment than the old ones, or even worse). In the last few years, they have done so with a new concept: “regenerative grazing” — also known as “regenerative animal grazing”, “regenerative livestock grazing”, “holistic grazing” or “holistic management” — and this article will debunk it and expose it as what it is: more greenwashing trying to stop the advancement of the vegan and environmental movements which have been calling for a total overhaul of the food production system from animal-based to plant-fungi-algae-bacteria-based.

What is Regenerative Animal Grazing?

Regenerative animal grazing has been promoted as a revolutionary approach to farming that supposedly benefits the environment through improved soil health and carbon sequestration.  This term began to be used by the public in February 2013, when Allan Savory, a Zimbabwean farmer who exploits other animals and a self-described ecologist, delivered a TED talk titled “How to Green the World’s Deserts and Reverse Climate Change”. In this presentation, which has since been viewed over 5 million times, Savory made the bold claim that farmed animals grazing in high densities for short periods could dramatically improve soil health and sequester carbon, potentially reversing climate change.

The concept gained further momentum in 2014 when Arizona State University professor and filmmaker Peter Byck produced “Soil Carbon Cowboys”, the first in a series of films promoting regenerative agricultural practices. These media productions helped popularise the approach among farmers seeking alternatives to conventional animal agriculture — unable to defend their practices any longer after science backed the environmentalists and eco-vegans who kept pointing out how the cow’s meat and dairy industries were substantially contributing to the climate crisis with the amount of CO2 and methane gases they produce, and how they were contributing to the sixth mass extinction of species in the planet.

Proponents of this type of farming define regenerative grazing as “the process of restoring degraded soils using practices based on ecological principles”. Rather than a specific certification or set of rules, advocates describe it as a mindset, a holistic approach that considers the intersection of soil, plants, water, and other animals.

Regenerative grazing attempts to mimic how other animals behaved before domestication—even though such an attempt is often poor. Instead of keeping grazing animals such as cows or sheep in the same field for extended periods, farmers move them frequently, sometimes daily or even multiple times per day. They graze in smaller sections for shorter periods when the grass is longer. As described by The Lost Gardens of Heligan near Mevagissey in Cornwall, England, where they use this method of animal farming, “Regenerative grazing tries to mimic the way animals behaved and grazed long ago, before they were domesticated by humans. Herds would graze together and be constantly moving, to find food and to keep themselves safe from predators such as wolves.”

This approach claims several benefits:

• Improved soil health through the natural cycling of nutrients
• Carbon sequestration in soil, potentially mitigating climate change
• Enhanced biodiversity and ecosystem resilience
• Reduced need for chemical inputs
• Better welfare for exploited individuals compared to conventional systems

Jeff Goodwin, program director for Texas A&M’s Natural Resources Institute, emphasises that regenerative ranching looks “holistically at the intersection of soil, plants, water, animals and the producer.” This approach presents regenerative grazing as working “in concert with nature” rather than against it.

It sounds too good to be true, does it not? Everything sounds like it was written by a true environmentalist, right? But remember what I said earlier about the “clever” tactics animal agriculture are now employing: “reforming” themselves, creating new concepts that sound very green, using research to show that the new and improved methods of exploiting farm animals are now good for the environment, and selling the entire thing as “progress” and “natural”. It sounds too good to be true because it is. Regenerative animal grazing exists as a label and idea many people fall for, and as a variation of farm management that some farmers are now choosing to attract more subsidies (companies such as Microsoft buy carbon credits from ranches practising holistic grazing) and prevent losing more customers, but it does not do what “it says on the tin.” It is just another smokescreen to keep exploiting animals for profit.

Debunking the Myths of Regenerative Animal Grazing

Ten years after the concept was promoted, we now know that Regenerative Grazing is far from the panacea that it was promised to be. It turns out that, in several respects, it is worse than conventional agriculture. Comprehensive research has revealed that this new practice requires substantially more land than conventional animal agriculture (up to 2.5 times more), contributes significantly to climate pollution despite claims to the contrary, and reduces biodiversity. Studies supporting its soil carbon sequestration claim have been methodologically flawed, measuring only topsoil rather than deeper layers where carbon movement occurs. While regenerative grazing may offer modest improvements over conventional animal agriculture in some aspects, it remains fundamentally unsustainable at scale and perpetuates harm to other animals and ecosystems that could be avoided through plant-based agricultural approaches.

I am not going to find new arguments or data to debunk regenerative animal grazing here because this has already been done by more reputable and qualified people than I. The concept has already been scrutinised in detail, and the conclusions that it does not do what it claims to do (or it exaggerates such claims to such a degree that promoting this practice is deceptive), are beginning to be accepted by mainstream society —  even though many people, decision-makers, and governments still fall for it.

Here is a recent example. On an Instagram post on the 1^st of January 2025, Sage Regenerative Kitchen & Brewery, an L.A. restaurant previously known as Sage Vegan Bistro before it started serving meat and lost its vegan credentials, announced the decision to close all of its Southern California locations from the 5^th of January. In 2024, co-owners Mollie Engelhart and Chef Elias Sosa made the ill-fated decision to transition from only plant-based options to a menu based on “regenerative agriculture” — which would include animal-based products disguised as more sustainable than average to deceive customers who are already aware of the devastating impact of animal agriculture on animals, the environment, and human health. The deception did not work; not enough customers came, and the restaurant had to shut down.

People are starting to learn about the regenerative grazing “scam” thanks to research analysing its claims and the dissemination of the truth by experts who know how to scrutinise information and challenge propaganda in today’s “post-truth” era. One such expert is the acclaimed British journalist George Monbiot, author of the excellent book “Regenesis”.

On the 11^th of July 2023, a debate organised by the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery between Allan Savory and George Monbiot took place at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. The debate, titled “Is livestock grazing essential to mitigating climate change?” and chaired by Dame Professor E.J. Milner-Gulland, was about regenerative grazing. 

The debate was clearly won by Monbiot, who was able to deliver compelling evidence-based arguments, while Savory seemed to try to avoid engaging in discussions challenging his views. In his introductory remarks, Monbiot said:

“There is no empirical evidence whatsoever for the proposition that livestock grazing can mitigate climate change. In fact, there’s no evidence that it can even wash its own face in terms of greenhouse gas emissions — let alone be net negative… It’s not just that there’s no evidence for the proposition. It’s not even plausible. There’s no mechanism for the proposition either. In order for this proposition to be true you have to rely not on natural processes but on Magic. In fact, there’s loads of contradictory evidence showing that grazing livestock systems are a major net loss of carbon into the atmosphere.”

The Science Against Regenerative Grazing

As Monbiot mentions, one of the most significant of Savory’s claims — that regenerative grazing can sequester enough carbon to reverse climate change — has not been supported by rigorous research. Earlier studies showing promise were largely irrelevant because they only measured carbon in the top layers of soil. Further research revealed that carbon in these upper layers does not remain stable. Besides, the animals produce so much greenhouse gas emissions that the potential carbon sequestration from grazing cannot compensate for that. Indeed, a 2017study by the University of Oxford (which used more than 300 sources) titled Grazed and Confused accepted that managed grazing systems could sequester some carbon back into the soil, but this was only around 20-60 % of the emissions that the animals produced in the first place, and after a some years (15 at the most) the soil reaches carbon equilibrium (meaning that it cannot sequester carbon any more). 

Contrary to marketing claims that present the exploitation of other animals for food as “sustainable” or “climate-friendly,” research demonstrates that Bovine grazing in any form remains a major source of climate pollution. The digestive processes of ruminants produce significant methane emissions regardless of how they are managed (and methane is far worse for the planet than CO₂ because it has an immediate warming effect 84-120 times stronger than CO₂ when first emitted).

On the 17^th of March 2025, a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that even in the most optimistic scenarios, grass-fed cows and bulls are no less carbon-intensive than industrial alternatives. The study, titled “US grass-fed beef is as carbon intensive as industrial beef and ≈10-fold more intensive than common protein-dense alternatives,” and authored by US and Israel scientists, concluded, “We find that even under optimistic rangeland sequestration, grass-fed beef is not less carbon intensive than industrial beef and 3 to 40 times as carbon intensive as most plant and animal alternatives.” Randy Jackson, a professor of grassland ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who was not involved in the study, said to EuroNews that he had found similar results in his own research showing that grass-fed beef has higher emissions assuming the same demand. 

Then, we have the land problem. A 2022 report concluded that the amount of land being used for regenerative agriculture, if applied to address the climate crisis, would have to triple and reach 40% of global farmland by 2030. Regenerative ranching contributes to biodiversity loss precisely because it requires substantially more land than conventional production — up to 2.5 times more according to available research — and the more land humanity “steals” from forests (the true carbon sinks of Nature) to create pastures for cows, the worse the climate crisis and biodiversity loss problems end up being. There simply is not enough farmland on Earth to make regenerative grazing work while maintaining current levels of consumption of products derived from other animals.

In his book Regenesis, Monbiot did all the math and wrote the following about Allan Savory’s claims: “Since 1750, roughly 490 billion tonnes of carbon have been released from fossil fuels, and around 190 billion tonnes by cutting forests, draining wetlands, ploughing soils and other kinds of land use. So, to return atmospheric carbon to pre-industrial levels, grassland soils would need to absorb 680 billion tonnes. Since the dawn of agriculture, roughly 133 billion tonnes of carbon are reckoned to have been lost from the world’s soils. Of this, between 70 and 90 billion tonnes have been released from steppes, savannahs and grasslands, the ecosystems Allan is talking about. (…) A study of the global potential for sucking up carbon by changing the way we farm suggests that, at most, 64 billion tonnes could be absorbed this century by agricultural soils. If we assume, again being generous, that two-thirds of this absorption happens on steppes, savannahs and grasslands, this brings the potential down to 43 billion tonnes, or about 6 per cent of Allan’s target of 680 billion.”

It is not only an issue of losing forests and not being able to replace their ecological and climate function, but also what the farmed animals do when they are grazing. According to another 2022 study, over 1.5 million cows graze on US public lands to the detriment of biodiversity, wiping out wild plants and woody trees, and crowding out deer and elk from grazing. Even low-density grazing alters ecosystem biodiversity and the quality and quantity of food available for native wildlife. 

Even the claims that animals are happier in regenerative grazing farms than in conventional farms and therefore grow healthier and bigger, so their exploitation is more efficient, have been questioned. A field trial comparing different regenerative grazing practices in sheeps found no significant difference in weight between treatment groups, casting doubt on claims of improved productivity. 

The Problem Is Not “Regenerative” But “Grazing”

Animal grazing is no better than intensive farming as far as environmental impact is concerned. In the Oxford debate mentioned earlier, Monbiot said that animal grazing alone is one of the foremost drivers of greenhouse gas emissions, climate breakdown, and ecological breakdown. He stated the following:

“We also know that grazing livestock are far more damaging in terms of greenhouse gas emissions than intensively farmed livestock — horrendous as those are. There are two reasons for this. Partly because grazing livestock tend to be ruminants (cattle, sheep, goats, etc.) which produce a great deal of enteric methane which is a very powerful greenhouse gas… but also grazed livestock grow more slowly and eat more roughage than livestock which are kept in these horrendous intensive conditions. As a result of that too, they produce more methane and more nitrous oxide. So, the worst possible food product of your greenhouse gas emissions is the products of gracing livestock. In other words, pasture-fed or grass-fed beef.”

The animal agriculture industry has been trying to hide this by disguising animal farming as something that sounds and looks better, and certainly, the label “regenerative” does the job. There is nothing wrong with this term, though. Moving toward more regenerative agriculture is welcome progress, and even crop production should go in that direction as the cultivation of plants in mono crops using lots of inorganic fertilisers and pesticides is not good for the environment either. Growing plants organically moves us in the right direction, but it does not go far enough as it still uses pesticides and animal-based fertilisers. There is a solution, though.

There is one type of regenerative agriculture that is good and should be promoted: Regenerative Veganic Agriculture. Veganic farming is the organic cultivation of plants and crops with a minimal amount of exploitation or harm to any animal. For instance, no use of animal manure or bone/fish meal, and use instead mulch, vegetable compost, green manure, or chipped branched wood. No pesticides and no use of animals to plough fields either. Veganic farmers try to produce their sources of fertility directly on the farm and use crop rotation and polyculture. Regenerative Veganic Agriculture is the transformation of veganic gardening or small-scale veganic farming into a scalable solution to address the current global environmental crisis.

In different parts of the world, we find different terms being used for this type of farming (sometimes called stockfree farming, or veganics). Slightly different approaches can also lead to different commercial standards. For instance, Biocyclic Vegan Agriculture (BVA), pioneered in Germany by Adolf Hoops in the 1950s and renamed by Dr ag. Johannes Eisenbach in the 1980s. In 2017, its official standards became international. After the creation of the Vegan Organic Network in 1996, the UK created its separate veganic standards called Certified Stockfree-Organic. Another member of regenerative veganic agriculture is veganic permaculture.

Regenerative veganic agriculture does more than just not using any animal inputs. Holistic grazing was meant to replicate some pre-agricultural balanced ecosystems by replacing antelopes or bison with cows or sheeps, but you can also replace those with humans instead of non-human animals, but using more efficient cunning techniques, such as no-till, cultivating plants with taproots, planting cover crops, and even using ultra-lightweight robots for less disruptive precision farming. Regenerative farming is a good idea to produce food…the grazing, animal manure, and all the other animal inputs are what ruin it.

It’s All Greenwashing (and Even Veganwashing)

The regenerative grazing movement has enabled significant greenwashing within animal agriculture. By attaching the term “regenerative” to products derived from other animals, companies create the impression that consumers can continue eating the same quantities of flesh, secretions and other animal-derived products without environmental consequences.

This marketing approach directly contradicts the increasing scientific consensus that shifting to a plant-based food system is necessary to address climate change. By providing false reassurance about the sustainability of exploiting other animals for food, regenerative grazing advocacy is delaying necessary dietary shifts and preventing people from becoming vegan sooner. As Sentient Media reports, “Consumers may be misled by food labelling that claims something like regenerative beef is ‘sustainable’ or ‘climate-friendly,’ when the evidence suggests cattle grazing is environmentally harmful, requires a lot more land to produce the same amount of meat and does not store carbon in the ground or significantly reduce emissions.”

It is not a credible solution but a tokenistic performative gesture, as it would be a petrol company buying an electric car for its CEO to show how green they are now; or a burger chain offering a tokenistic plant-based burger in a couple of its branches to show how vegan they are now; or a tobacco brand selling light and low-tar cigarettes to show how healthy they are now. It’s all a marketing ploy to respond to criticism and declining sales. You may think that my analogies are farfetched, but they are all real examples of greenwashing, healthwashing, and veganwashing that are still happening today.

For instance, in recent years, many major petrol companies have been investing in and promoting electric vehicles (EVs) or renewable energy projects to rebrand themselves as more environmentally friendly. Companies like BP, Shell, and Total have started marketing themselves as “energy” companies rather than just fossil fuel companies, claiming to focus more on clean energy solutions. They often highlight investments in electric vehicle charging infrastructure, renewable energy, or carbon capture technology as evidence of their commitment to sustainability. 

Tobacco manufacturers have been healthwashing cigarettes since the 1950s. Certain redesigned cigarettes with the following features were marketed as “light” cigarettes: cellulose acetate filters (to trap tar), highly porous cigarette paper (to allow toxic chemicals to escape), ventilation holes in the filter tip (to dilute smoke with air), and different blends of tobacco. However, light cigarettes are no safer than regular cigarettes. Tar exposure from a light cigarette can be just as high as that from a regular cigarette if the smoker takes long, deep, or frequent puffs. People who fall for the deception and switch to light cigarettes are likely to inhale the same amount of toxic chemicals, and they remain at high risk of developing smoking-related cancers and other diseases.

The meat industry has been doing the same sort of deceptive “washing” marketing. Major meat producers have launched plant-based products in a tokenistic way. For instance, Tyson Foods (one of the world’s largest meat producers) launched its “Raised & Rooted” plant-based nuggets and burgers in 2019 (however, the company tried for a while to market some of its products as “blended” with animal-based ingredients); JBS (the world’s largest meat company) introduced plant-based products under its “Ozo” brand and pledged net-zero emissions by 2040 (however, investigations have shown continued links to deforestation and high carbon emissions); Cargill (an agribusiness giant) launched plant-based protein products (but at the same time, it remains one of the biggest suppliers of cow flesh globally);  McDonald’s tested the McPlant in limited locations but later quietly pulled it from US markets; in 2022, news articles were circulating that Burger King was challenging customers to consider meat-free options by making its plant-based Burger King options the “normal” options on the menu (but it turned out this only happened in one store in Vienna, Austria, just for a day or two). I can see all of these jumping on the regenerative grazing wagon when things get tougher for them.

Indeed, on 18^th September 2024, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) filed a lawsuit in a Washington D.C. Superior Court against the US meat-producing giant Tyson Foods for making “false or misleading” claims about its climate-friendly goals and cow meat products.

According to the EWG’s lawsuit, without proper standards in place, Tyson and other meatpackers are capitalising on consumer preferences without taking meaningful steps toward climate-related goals. EWG said that Tyson’s pledge to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and “climate-smart” beef marketing are misleading and amount to “greenwashing”. 

Most of Tyson’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the production of meat from cows’ flesh (85%), but last year, Tyson unveiled its “climate-smart” beef program with a stated goal of reducing 30% of its beef production emissions by 2030. 

You Cannot “Wash” Animal Exploitation Clean

The fundamental inefficiency of converting plants to products derived from farmed animals — regenerative or otherwise — means that plant-based agriculture inherently requires less land, water, and other resources while producing fewer emissions per unit of nutrition.  Research consistently shows that plant-based food systems can feed more people with less environmental impact — and regenerative veganic farming would have even less impact. Rather than attempting to make inherently resource-intensive animal agriculture marginally better (and on the way of trying, actually making it worse), transitioning toward regenerative plant-based food production offers a more direct and effective solution to the current environmental and animal welfare challenges.

However, beyond the environmental critiques, regenerative grazing still involves the exploitation and slaughter of other animals. While proponents may argue that these systems provide better living conditions than conventional factory farms, they still treat other animals as commodities rather than individuals with their own interests and rights.

From a vegan perspective, improvements in how we exploit other animals do not address the fundamental moral question of whether we should be exploiting them at all, especially when plant-based alternatives exist that can provide better nutrition with significantly lower environmental impacts. Conner Anderson is a vegan activist and friend of mine who organises lots of vegan outreach in the UK, and he recently posted this on social media:

“I used to get into a lot of debates over whether ’sustainable fishing’ and ‘sustainable animal agriculture’ exist, but now I do my best to shut those conversations down straight away. For what it’s worth, I don’t think those things do exist, but even if they did, it’s beside the point. You could argue that the most environmentally friendly thing any one person could do is go on a mass killing spree of humans, yet nobody in their right mind would ever propose that as a solution to climate change. Let’s not entertain it as a serious suggestion when animals are the victims.”

I couldn’t agree more. Regenerative animal grazing, despite its appealing narrative and potential modest improvements over the conventional exploitation of other animals for food, falls far short of its proponents’ claims. The practice cannot sequester enough carbon to meaningfully address climate change, requires unsustainable amounts of land, continues to contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, and perpetuates the exploitation of other animals. It delays the building of the Vegan World, which is so urgently needed.

The healthwashing tactics of the tobacco industry did not work and smoking is on a steep decline now. The greenwashing tactics of petrol companies are not working either as more and more people choose electrical vehicles now. Hopefully, the greenwashing tactics of animal agriculture will also fail, and the truth will prevail. 

The truth about regenerative grazing is that it is greenwashing designed to deceive the public and delay meaningful solutions to global crises that threaten the pockets of a greedy, unethical, and powerful industry.

Don’t fall for it.

Jordi Casamitjana:

“Originally from Catalonia, but resident in the UK for several decades, Jordi is a vegan zoologist and author, who has been involved in different aspects of animal protection for many years. In addition to scientific research, he has worked mostly as an undercover investigator, animal welfare consultant, and animal protection campaigner. He has been an ethical vegan since 2002, and in 2020 he secured the legal protection of all ethical vegans in Great Britain from discrimination in a landmark employment tribunal case that was discussed all over the world. He is also the author of the book, ‘Ethical Vegan: a personal and political journey to change the world’.”

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