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Earlier this week, Epicurious - a popular recipe-hosting website with millions of followers - dumped beef in the most "it's not you, it's me" kind of way. The misconceptions spewed in this article mirrors the same "cow farts" rhetoric we have heard since the United Nations released its report in 2006 blaming the lion's share of greenhouse gas emissions on beef cattle production. [Extracted from the article]

Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture account for 9.9% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and come from livestock such as cows, agricultural soils and rice production, according to the latest update for the 2018 year. In 2018, greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture economic sector accounted for 9.9% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. [Extracted from the article]

For many years, they were able to keep up with soil degradation in their farming and grazing practices with more productive plant varieties, synthetic fertilizers and a myriad of pesticides which only masked and even exacerbated the real problem - declining soil health. Good management of grazing livestock and farming practices has tremendous power to regenerate soil health, bio-diversity, plant health and even human health, plus make a positive relocation of carbon from the atmosphere to the soil. [Extracted from the article]

The article observes the change from conventional crop farming using synthetic fertilizers to organic farming production. A study was done on a six-acre site in Champaign, Illinois in 2003 by scientists of the Illinois Natural History Survey (INHS) and the University of Wisconsin with the help of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Organic Transitions Program grant. It is said that soil fertility has improved in the transition.