ROTATIONAL GRAZING

Ranchers look to nature for carbon sequestration solutions.

- Chelsea Dinterman

Years ago, before being hunted to near extinction, millions of bison roamed the American Great Plains. Their slow grazing and continual movement to avoid predators helped the prairie thrive.

Today, some cattle ranchers aim to mimic that process with rotational grazing, incentivized by voluntary carbon programs.

How It Works

Instead of giving cattle full access to a field, ranchers practicing rotational grazing split the field into several pastures, or paddocks. After a set period, they move cattle from one pasture to another, giving the land and forage time to recover from intensive grazing.

“We end up utilizing only 20% of the forage if we’re keeping a few animals in a large landscape,” says Brekke Munks, a carbon science agronomist at the Agoro Carbon Alliance, an organization backed by Yara International that works with farmers and ranchers to adopt practices that become carbon credits. “If we take the opportunity and divide large pastures, we can increase the forge that is utilized in that pasture.”