Is plant-based agriculture the only environmentally sustainable form of agriculture?

Answer 1

No.

The word "sustainable" is quite the buzz-word today, with few who actually know its intrinsic meaning. This of course makes the question itself a bit misleading. So what is sustainable?

In the sociogeoecoeconomical sense, it is "(of economic development, energy sources, etc) capable of being maintained at a steady level without exhausting natural resources or causing severe ecological damage."

Let's face it, no form of agriculture is sustainable in the purest sense of the word. No form of agriculture can maintain itself without using outside Natural Resources that are at the risk of depletion, and damage to the environment has been done for as long as we humans have been on the face of this earth. We have purposely changed and influenced the environment around us, for consequences that were desirable and others both unforeseen and undesirable.

To be "environmentally sustainable" is to, as the definition above states, maintain itself at a constant and consistent level without exhausting natural resources–renewable or non-renewable–or causing severe ecological damage. Is plant-based agriculture able to fit this definition? Not at all.

Plant-based agriculture or veganic agriculture is a form of agriculture that prohibits any input from animals, but allows input from outside sources of non-renewable resources. So instead of using chicken litter for phosphorus they use mined phosphate rock salt to apply to their gardens. Nitrogen-based fertilizers come about with the use of fossil fuels. Sulphur fertilizer is no different, and neither is potash (potassium). All of these are at risk of exhaustion, maybe not today but in the next 100 years or so.

Veganic agriculture requires changing the landscape and the soil to produce food for humans. While not much change to soil can be made except adding veganic compost, utilizing green manure (which can be an arduous process if food needs to be produced soon for those who need it most), and adding fertilizer inputs, landscape needs to be changed so that land is made suited for growing crops. This means deforestation, plowing up native grasslands, and draining and filling wetlands. Millions of wildlife get displaced, many killed, and many a biodiverse habitat is destroyed. If this is considered "environmentally sustainable" to those that support veganism and growing more soybeans and wheat for people than grass and forbs for sheep, cattle, and deer, then those people need to take a far better look at what is environmentally beneficial.

The argument behind supporting veganic ag is that it is believed that it takes less acreage and caloric input to produce a pound of soybeans than it does to produce a pound of beef. This assumes that beef is raised on soybeans and corn only and is seen as competition with using soybeans for making tofu and vegan "meats". Only problem with this assumption is that cattle don't have to be raised on soybeans and corn to be slaughtered for their meat. Rather, cattle can and should be seen as NOT competition, but rather a mutual benefit for being able to graze in areas where soybeans and corn cannot be grown, and graze fields to apply manure after these crops have been taken off.

Instead, livestock and animal-based agriculture can be seen as not environmentally sustainable–these animals need outside inputs to remain healthy too, this in the form of salt blocks and minerals, and that about 10% of what they have taken from the land won't exactly come back after they've been removed–but rather as regenerative. Regenerative agriculture ensures that livestock are a huge part of the picture to help reverse severe ecological damage and improve and maintain natural landscapes so that they are also beneficial to wildlife and plant species.

One cannot assume that to be "regenerative" and using livestock means using the same old lazy grazing practices of putting cattle out on a large piece of land in the spring and not seeing them until fall. No, in order to be regenerative cattle need to be managed so that their grazing movements and timing when they go in and when they need to come out is on par with what the land can handle. This means using grazing practices as encouraged by graziers like Jim Gerrish, Joel Salatin, Alan Savory, Gerald Fry, and many others. It is a management scheme that goes far beyond simple rest-rotation; rather looking at the plants, the soil, and the landscape, how to use Fencing and water systems to influence better uniform grazing, and judging when to put cattle in, when to take them out, and how long to rest. How much residue to leave behind? How many animals do I need? Those questions are very important.

Folks can be regenerative and utilize grazing animals along with crop production. Briefly mentioned above was crop-residue grazing, where livestock come in after a crop is removed to eat what is left, and leave manure behind to help add fertility to the field. They can also be used to graze a cover or cocktail crop stand. Producers like Gabe Brown, Colin Seis, Darryl Cluff, and others, do just that with success and without needing to use commercial fertilizers or even pesticides. They can build the soil using cocktails sown into existing perennial stands, and using livestock to put seed in the ground and add more fertility. They don't graze until there's nothing left, they put livestock in to graze for a period of time, take them out, and let the mix crop come back in to be harvested. A lot of producers also sow cocktails just to feed their animals, and that's perfectly fine, especially when there's a healthy mix of legumes like five different types of clover, turnips, kale, brassicas, oats, barley, sorghum, annual ryegrass, soybean, corn, buckwheat, millet, and other species mixed in to help build soil and provide opportunity for pollinators and soil biota.

To answer this question again and to summarize, no, plant-based agriculture is NOT the only "environmentally sustainable" form of agriculture nor it is it the only regenerative form of agriculture. A form of agriculture that uses livestock (preferably livestock not raised in confinement with "no legs" so to speak) that have legs and actively graze, peck or root in an annual or perennial plant stand, is the most regenerative and environmentally "sustainable" form of agriculture. The natural world of the Earth did not exist with just plants or just animals. It exists because BOTH plants AND animals co-exist, and that should be and is reflected in agricultural practices today and moreso into the future.

Answer 2

NO