Can cows and trees work together to help combat climate change?
Silvopasture creates healthier soil, increases biodiversity, and has the potential to increase carbon sequestration
Amid growing concerns about climate change and the impact of cows on our planet, farmers are turning to an age-old concept to help solve some of today’s most pressing challenges. It’s a method of regenerative farming called silvopasture — and it has enormous potential to advance sustainable solutions for global nutrition.
Derived from the Latin words silva (forest) and pastura (grazing land), silvopasture is the practice of integrating trees, pasture and cows to create a balanced local ecosystem where each element works to benefit the other.
Think of it as a mutually supportive system that combines forestry and grazing to create the perfect synergy between cows and the land. For instance, relying on trees to enrich the soil and provide cows with natural shade. Or, allowing cows to forage on fallen fruit or nuts from trees to supplement their primary diet of grass.
Essentially, a well-managed silvopasture site allows all parts of a farming system to work in harmony.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, cows contribute 5–7% of total greenhouse gas emissions. As farmers look for ways to reduce their carbon footprint, silvopasture is one of the most promising solutions.
Why? Because growing trees and forage on the same land where cows graze means more carbon can be captured from the atmosphere and stored in the soil. In fact, combining trees with grazing land helps capture 5–10 times more carbon than open pasture can.
The roots of trees make this possible by feeding the soil’s microorganisms, which then lock in carbon to create a long-term carbon sink. Soil with increased carbon content has better structure and can retain more water, which allows farmers to capture even more carbon over time. Capturing more carbon means that more oxygen can be released back into the atmosphere through the biogenic carbon cycle.
The opportunity for farmers to lower their carbon footprint through silvopasture systems is massive. Project Drawdown, a nonprofit investigating the potential impacts of different climate solutions, considers silvopasture to be the highest-ranked agricultural solution (in terms of mitigation impact) the organization has explored.
Silvopasture has the potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 42 gigatons if adopted on an additional 72 to 77 million hectares globally by 2050. To put it into perspective, that’s like removing nearly every gas-powered vehicle from the road for 10 years.
For individual farmers, the contribution might look like this:
By planting trees in underutilized areas, managing forage to regenerate soil health, and integrating grazing animals into this cycle, farmers can play a key role in reducing emissions. When multiplied across regions, these small, scalable actions add up to global transformation.
The benefits of silvopasture go far beyond capturing and storing carbon. Other benefits include:
On the other hand, mismanaged conventional open grazing systems (basically, the opposite of silvopasture) can lead to many problems including overgrazing, compacted soil, loss of biodiversity, lower carbon storage, higher erosion and soil degradation.
Globally, agroforestry systems like silvopasture hold incredible potential for helping farmers produce more while using less. With the potential to increase profitability and help mitigate climate change, silvopasture can be adopted across diverse climates and regions.
It is not a one-size-fits-all solution, however. Factors like climate, soil type and local ecosystems influence silvopasture’s success.
But for countries like Brazil, where Indigenous communities have been practicing agroforestry for thousands of years, silvopasture can be particularly transformative. Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of beef, so its farmers are met with the unique challenges of feeding the growing global population while also doing their part to combat deforestation and reduce carbon emissions. This makes opportunity in silvopasture especially clear, for its ability to maximize the productivity of existing land – without clearing additional forested areas for pasture.
In local biomes like the Caatinga, farmers are implementing silvopasture systems to restore degraded land, increase biodiversity and enhance the productivity of cows. Studies have shown that the integration of native trees like Gliricidia sepium (more commonly known as cade de cacao) can significantly improve soil health and carbon storage while[SH1] also providing shade and forage for the cows and wildlife that inhabit the land.
As concerns about the impact of cows on the environment continue to arise, ancient agroforestry systems like silvopasture are gaining momentum. And like many answers to complex challenges, silvopasture reminds us that some of the world’s most powerful solutions are already at our fingertips.
By allowing cows, trees and the earth beneath us to all work together for the greater good, agriculture can actually be a part of the climate solution.
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