Ep. 355: Is cattle ranching sustainable?

Guest: Cherie Copithorne-Barnes

We need protein – plain and simple, we need it.

And we need protein from nutrient rich sources. Beef, chicken, pork are all nutrient rich and when cooked, these are the foods that propelled the development of the human brain. They remain important to our brain health and the replacement of protein in our bodies that is continuously breaking down.

Alberta cattle rancher Cherie Copithorne-Barnes says, “Cows are an exceptional source of protein. They eat plant matter and bio-pack it into nutrient rich food for us.”

Today, there are approximately 70 million cows in North America. That’s down by close to 50 million cows from a peak in the 1970s. These are large grazing animals that we eat. 50 million cows is still a lot of animals eating a lot of grass and grains and barley. They take up a lot of space and they burp methane.

“Yes,” says Copithorne-Barnes. “And they play a vital role in the health of marginal agricultural lands – land that you cannot grow anything else on,” to which Copithorne-Barnes points out, at over 1,300 metres above sea level in Alberta, no other agricultural product will grow and produce food humans can eat.

The question then is, are cows bad for us? Bad for the environment? Or are they good for the environment and good for us? And that begs the question – is cattle ranching sustainable?

Stuart McNish invited fourth generation rancher Cherie Copithorne-Barnes to join him for this episode of Conversations That Matter, Food for Thought to ask her about beef.