@ Yup.

That closing question was so great, taking up a very hot topic like "invasive species" and makes it so clear that we are limiting our self with our mind sets. Allan is a bright man.

Tragic that your local cattle were taken. I hope things get better for your community.

Yes it will, but much faster in a humid environment where it will break down biologically, in a brittle environment it will be a chemical breakdown and itll take many more years.

You are a complete moron. The soil died the day we stopped using the plow and went to no till. So did MILLIONS of birds and small animals of nearly every inland variety. The worst thing that has happed to nature, to the soil, and to conservation in the history of this planet is no till farming.

@@jamesaritchie1 A number of videos with evidence here in KZfaq indicate that no till is the way to go. Don't call people morons if they are armed with evidence.

@@jamesaritchie1 Your post makes no sense. Why would allowing the land to be covered with greenery in between cash crops and shading the soil with this cover when you plant your crops kill off millions of birds and small animals? I call BS. Besides, when you start out calling someone a complete moron, you do nothing to show you're not one yourself. You can't tell me that leaving the land bare with nothing growing on it for most of the year is good for birds, small animals, nature, the soil, or conservation.

I don't think he said anything anti tree. He just pointed out that planting trees outside the natural range of trees and drip irrigating them with well water isn't working to stop the spread of deserts.

This is what I think Mastadon Valley Farms is doing. Mixed tree and grassland.

From what I understand the answer to the first half of your question is that he has the herds in his area in Zimbabwe spend the night in corrals that force that bunching. They defecate and urinate there overnight and are released and herded to areas with more plant cover during the day, and after a short period the corral moves to another area so the manure can dissipate. The hooves break up the ground and allow the manure and urine to enter it, and due the corral location moving after a relatively short period the manure and urine do not become toxic. This way the livestock are safe from predators overnight, concentrate their waste in an area that needs vastly more organic material to support new plant life and soil biology, and the animals spend the day feeding on plant cover where it exists. This obviously wouldn't work in the middle of the sahara, but that's not the point. The idea is that areas that are currently in the process of desertifying can be remediated because it isn't entirely desert yet. The answer to the second question, as far as I understand it, depends highly on local conditions. There are all sorts of ways to force the livestock to move, and keep them where they are (various kinds of fencing, with gates you move the cattle through, either permanent or mobile electric fencing). Then the time that any given number of animals are allowed to spend on a given piece of land is dependent on various local conditions: rainfall, current soil mineral content, the composition of the herd, calving/nursing females, etc.

Thanks David. I truly appreciate your response which was helpful. All the best.

@@Albertarocks As I understand him, what keeps them moving if in a natural herd, as in the great plains bison of the past, or the savannah gazelles etc. is that they would eat, poop and pee in that cluster they were grazing, and they don't want to eat their own waste, so they move on to the next good spot en masse... and fertilize that before moving on to the next spot. And if we are keeping them as our animals, it's using various means like David just said. Regarding your first question, yes, David also touched on that. The marginalized areas are the ones that are redeemable by this method... but the thing about a margin area is that it is a MARGIN! In other words, the margin at some points becomes a desert. But as the margins are redeemed and come back, the desert areas butting up against them will start to feel the impact of water and growth next to them, and start becoming redeemable...they then become a margin, and in zones would become redeemable. That's what I see as potential working. Of course if things are so so scrubby and can't sustain five cattle, you have to move use the method of corralling and such that David said, and gradually move out and impact the surrounding areas. I only have a few cows. But I have found that if they are confined to a very small area and forced to graze what's there, but moved so quickly as to not destroy the roots, it is almost a miracle how fast it comes back.

Albertarocks Good questions. There are two terms to understand: stocking rate and stock density. Stocking rate is the number of animals you have on your land, so let's say on a 100 acre farm it takes 5 acres to support a cow, you can therefore have 20 cows. But you must manage the animals to get stock density. Stock density is the pounds of animal per acre at any given time. So, using temporary electric fence or herding, we can bunch those cattle up and keep them in an area for a specified amount of time. You could put the 20 cattle on one acre for 24 hours. Assuming you have 1000 pound cows, you now have a stock density of 20,000 pounds per acre. That is still pretty low, so you can subdivide that as many times as you want. You could move them 5 times a day, giving them a fifth of an acre each time and you would achieve 100,000 pounds of stock density in each paddock. Higher stock density usually means more trampled plant material which is what feeds soil life and grows new top soil. You are right that we can't put millions of bison or cattle back on the land and achieve this. There are no predators left (not enough) and there are houses, fences, highways, etc. This must be accomplished by thousands of farms across the country managing animals to regenerate the land. Another thing, in the brittle environments where very little vegetation is growing and mostly the land is bare soil, just the hoof action from animals is enough to break the crust of the soil, allow penetration of rain, and the seeds are already in the soil, so you get plant growth when you get precipitation. This works better with higher stock densities because of animal behavior.

@@troypuckett5502 Thank you for taking the time to respond. I appreciate your comments a lot and they were helpful. I'm slowly starting to fill in the missing pieces. All the best!

Nothing can grown in the desert. No water-holding capacity

Um, with billions of people and all these animals, we will have no trouble having enough CO2. We have _too much now,_ and it's screwing up the climate and making the world average temperature hotter every year. There are people living in some areas of Asia where the summers average 124˚. How would you like living in that kind of heat with no air conditioning? Allowing more grassland to thrive, like it once did, will feed the livestock which feeds people, and it will cool us down to a more livable temperature with fewer floods, fires, hurricanes, and droughts. Not to mention deaths.

Yeah, same here. I think the differences are probably too subtle for people that are not ranchers too understand because the elements of the two seem like they are pretty much the same.

I Believe the difference between the 2 is as follows.. Rotational grazing livestock are in a paddock until the farmer/Rancher believe the area is fully grazed and then moved to another area. Planned Grazing livestock are in a paddock for 1-2 days and moved regardless of remaining food. remembering the higher numbers of livestock crushing and pooping means you need to keep them moving. the key word is Planning, you stick to the plan. rotational grazing is more random or seasonal..

@@MrJeffRowe Thanks. I was wondering myself. I'm sure it's in his book but my not having a ranch... :)

@@MrJeffRowe Agree....and I believe with planned grazing you're dealing with a much smaller area (to allow for trampling, poop and urine to be 'localized') as opposed to rotational grazing where paddocks will be bigger.

They are exactly the same except one you are moving without any planning. Just flying blind. It has nothing to do with paddock size. I know plenty of people rotational grazing with daily moves, and they all ran into trouble during last years drought.

But, but... people are animals, too! Seriously. Literally.

Love yourself

Nope. Allan Savory is promoting Capitalism. * Hard-nosed, methodical management of resources. * The innovative power of the individual. You have 2 choices: * Death by demonic suffering. * Capitalism. There is nothing else.

I think you're both wrong. He's promoting holism.

And yet why else would so many of our civilizations have collapsed? They were all based on agriculture, which was the result of technology people developed, and yet somehow they managed to disappear, often leaving deserts in their wake.

Why? Please elaborate.

Adam and his rib? Or...

Because we are. He explains that the difference between humans and other apes is language and the ability to organize

@@justinxiaoproject6980 No, hon, we are not. God created us in His image and He is no monkey. Nor are we. If you cannot see the vast difference between humans and monkeys, more than tools and language, I feel sorry for you.

@@prayerangel1 There are many differences between us and monkeys. I am only clarifying what Allan Savory is talking about in the video. Our ability to imagine and our ability to even fool ourselves are other differences as well.