White Oaks Farms, a southwest Georgia operation known for its pasture-raised meats, says a third-party sustainability science firm has validated its claims that the farm is storing more carbon in its soil than pasture-raised cows emit during their lifetimes. The results indicated that White Oak Pastures offsets at least 100% of the 3,200-acre farm's grass-fed beef carbon emissions and as much as 85% of the farm’s total carbon emissions. Scientists at Quantis, an environmental research and design firm, conducted a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) on beef raised by White Oak Pastures to "account for the energy and environmental impacts of all stages of a product's life cycle, such as [the] acquisition of raw materials, the production process, handling of waste byproducts, and more." Using both soil sampling and modeled data from 2017, the LCA analyzed the farm's overall greenhouse gas footprint. The study included enteric emissions (belches and gas) from cattle, manure emissions, farm activities, slaughter and transport, and carbon sequestration through soil and plant matter. The scientists said, "based on historical sampling, White Oak Pastures' holistically managed fields went from 1 percent soil organic matter to 5 percent.”...MORE
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Doesn't basic soil science 101 say that soil organic matter is the result of the decay of the above ground plants and root death? So if you leave more above ground vegetative material and properly graze the standing biomass then shouldn't soil organic matter eventually increase? I guess it takes a car load of Phd's to figure that out? Besides EPA rates carbon as a pollutant so the work on this ranch is probably in line for some type of fine from EPA?
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