Repeating “regenerative ranching” lies doesn’t make them true. (Or does it?)
The challenge in exposing lies is not repeating and thus amplifying them.
Because a lie, repeated, can easily become perceived as the truth. (Ask U.S. Republican Senators whether or not Russia invaded Ukraine.)
Public relation firms and/or advertising agencies on the coal industry dole concocted the clever oxymoron, “clean coal” to convince the public that burning coal could be anything but filthy, polluting and toxic. The fossil fuel industry denied burning its fine, filthy product line created heat-trapping atmospheric gasses which accelerate global warming, creating today’s climate emergency. Even though its own internal, suppressed research revealed this reality decades before Al Gore famously popularized this scientific reality with his “Inconvenient Truth.” (And even Gore didn’t take on Big Beef and Big Dairy; he faced enough public, cultural and capitalist resistance as it was.)
Today, lies have become both more numerous and more outrageous. America’s booming Idiocracy is turbocharged by the ignorant internet use, paranoia, misinformation and intentional disinformation. So even the climate crisis itself can be disputed and denied outright. Even half the U.S. Congress denies the climate crisis, to prostrate themselves to the Pathological Liar in Chief, to keep their taxpayer paychecks coming.
In this Orwellian vein, the billion dollar beef and dairy industries are fighting back against the Inconvenient Truth of the 21st Century: that drinking cow’s milk and eating cheese and beef is a larger driver of global heating than burning fossil fuels. And a larger driver of global deforestation, and ocean pollution too. READ WHY.
So-called “regenerative ranching” is the clean coal of the cattle industry. Cattle ranching is the antithesis of ‘regenerative;’ it is an ecologically devastating practice today, regardless of “farm” size. It matters little, ecologically, whether 100 large herds of 1,000 cows are in a feedlot, or 1,000 smaller herds of 100 cows are spread over 100 small “farms.” Either way, 10,000 cows make manure, belch and fart methane, the potent, heat-trapping greenhouse gas cheese-eaters must ignore. Lots of little herds, spread over more land, damages more land, drives off more wildlife, and produces more methane with the increased roughage of their ‘grass-fed’ diet. READ MORE.
But the dairy & beef industries spend millions spreading and popularizing the regenerative lie — and consumers are desperate for excuses to keep feeding their addiction for cow flesh and milk.
TreeSpirit has devoted several web pages to this topic: READ MORE ABOUT the public relations lie called, “”regenerative ranching.” (Variously called “rotational grazing,” “holistic management” and other terms which pretend that moving cows around — and trampling, desiccating and coating even more land with manure — makes the damage of so much manure and methane magically disappear.
Our minds cling to the familiar. That’s one of the basic tenets taught and deployed in advertising and public relations. Both spend millions to get their product’s names in your face, because familiar is safe and appealing. Most people will choose a brand name over an unknown one.
Similarly, if you’re a dairy or beef ranchers whose cows are destroying the land — trampling, compacting, de-vegetating, desiccating and smothering it with manure — you must concoct a lie about the damage your nasty business does. And then repeat the hell out of the lie And thus, a star P.R. phrase was born: “Stewards of the Land.” (In Orwell’s 1984, the Ministry of Truth was the totalitarian government’s propaganda department. And so on.)
I hesitate to re-print or even link to the organic dairyman’s opinion piece above, because it is so ridded with lies. So I’ll slice & dice it up, below, and debunk its nonsense, non-science claims as we go, to break up its flow of falsehoods.
Lies detected & disected
ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
The San Francisco Standard – March 5, 2025
“Dead set on ‘saving’ Point Reyes, environmentalists want to kill its best stewards”
[https://sfstandard.com/opinion/2025/03/05/take-it-from-this-marin-dairy-farmer-whats-happening-to-point-reyes-is-a-disaster/ ]
BULLSH*T right out of the gate: the San Francisco Standard article’s title implies cattle ranchers are “its best stewards” — which is like claiming strip mining operations heal mountains.
Point Reyes ranches are more like “sewers on the land” than “stewards” because they produce literally millions of pounds of solid and liquid cow manure and urine, which is dumped, untreated, onto Point Reyes fields. Thousands of acres of coastal prairie has been destroyed by over a century of cattle ranching. Most of the original, evergreen (perennial) vegetation has been obliterated; thousands of acres of coastal prairie and scrub have been beaten down to almost bare dirt. – TreeSpirit
Most of the dairy farms and cattle ranches at Point Reyes National Seashore will soon disappear. Though the ranchers have been leasing the land from the National Park Service for decades, environmental groups sued the agency in 2016, alleging that agricultural pollution was disrupting local ecosystems. Earlier this year, 12 of the 14 working ranches accepted a buyout worth an estimated $30 million from the environmental groups to end years of draining litigation.
TRUTH: The pollution isn’t only “alleged,” it’s documented. Including HERE. This is one weapon in the dairyman’s go-to public relations pushback: poke at proven science and facts to create doubt. Classic “muddying the waters” so that enough people will question the truth. (Maybe January 6th was a peaceful riot. War is Peace…)
These ranches represent a loss of 20% of the agricultural land in Marin County and 1/3rd of West Marin’s dairy farms. Their closure means that many ranch workers, most of them immigrants, will lose their jobs…
TRUTH: While 18,000 acres of Point Reyes is technically in Marin County, it is federal land. Marin County ranchers sold it to the National Park Service (Interior Dept.) to make it a national park unit it has been since 1962. But this dairyman gets milk from two dairies in the park, and doesn’t want those sources ending. Because the two dairies, like all six Point Reyes dairies, are HEAVILY SUBSIDIZED by TAXPAYERS. But Shhhhhhhhh! – this is kept unknown to the public.
And as for those workers, they are low-wage jobs without benefits or healthcare or security; in effect slave-wage immigrant laborers who have few other options. Ranchers don’t pay them a living wage, not unlike African sharecroppers from another era. Ranchers only pretend to care about them when they might lose their cheap, exploited labor force.
…with ripple effects for local schools, services, businesses.
TRUTH: Tourism to Point Reyes National Seashore employs hundreds more workers across multiple industries — and hundreds more small businesses, including grocery stores, shops, restaurants, B&Bs — than ranching does. And for their few dozen crummy jobs, they occupy and degrade literally thousands of acres of federal nature preserve, a colossal waste and literally criminal abuse.
Though the buyout money might sound like a lot, after it’s divided by 12 and legal fees are paid, most of the departing ranchers will have little prospect of opening a new operation elsewhere.
TRUTH exposing MASSIVE MISDIRECTION & DISINFORMATION: Most of the Point Reyes ranchers have other ranches outside the park — purchased with the multi-million dollar buyouts they took from U.S. taxpayers in the 1960s and 1970s. Rancher were paid to leave, but then dug in their boots and refused to leave. Privileged and generously compensated, they now play the victim, for public pity.
Public taxpayers are subsidizing all Point Reyes dairy and beef ranchers, and have for decades — because the land is leased to them for about 10¢ on the dollar. Albert for some reason doesn’t ever mention this fact.
The campaign to displace the ranchers reflects a misguided vision of nature as a pristine playground suitable for postcards and tourists, with little regard for community or the planet.
TRUTH: Ignorance is Strength — for ranchers. Just boldly claim the up is down, black is white, and that cattle ranching doesn’t damage the ecosystem, but heals it.
Environmentalists primary concern is for our shared planet, wildlands and wildlife. Our heating the planet — especially with the old habit of eating dairy and beef products on today’s industrial scale — human “community” will suffer immeasurably. To put it mildly.
The gall, greed and desperation deployed to lie this big, about the most important issue humanity has ever faced, just to keep selling cheese and ice cream to children, is breathtaking.
While the buyout threatens our community as we’ve known it for 100-plus years, it’s still possible to keep some agriculture thriving inside Point Reyes.
TRUTH: In fact, some “agriculture” — a euphemism for “raising and killing cows for dairy and beef products” — will remain. 2 ranchers are staying, 12 took the deal of millions of dollars to golden parachute out of their ecologically destructive, publicly subsidized dairy and beef businesses.
Environmentalists would much prefer all ranching end, but have compromised in order to make some progress toward re-wilding Point Reyes. It’s why the park was created in the first place.
But yeah, removing polluting ranches does indeed change what’s been a practice for over 100 years. 8 billion humans can’t eat the same foods as did 2 or 4 billion humans. Evolve or perish, humanity.
When the nature preserve was created in 1962, 21,000 of its 53,000 acres were zoned as “pastoral,” allowing commercial dairies and ranches to operate. Since then, the preserve’s land area has grown, while the pastoral zone has shrunk. After the recent settlement, a [PROPOSED BUT NOT COMPLETED – TreeSpirit] General Management Plan eliminated most of this zone. A recent lawsuit filed by two ranchers could restore the commercial agriculture allowance, with new tenants and new leases.
TRUTH: First, ranchers must (and do) routinely lie about the park’s founders’ orignal intention, which was to end ranching. And second, did so compassionately and generously, giving ranchers 25 years to phase out their businesses after paying them millions of dollars to relinquish ownership.
The government’s mistake was paying them in advance, thinking they could be trusted. The new (second) 2025 settlement deal to finally get ranches out is with incremental payments over time, to protect against more rancher deceit. Like the kind this article reeks of.
Who owns cows grazing at Point Reyes is irrelevant. All cow operations, for any purpose are major polluters and damage entire ecosystems. Cows don’t belong, of all places, in a national park.
Keeping the pastoral zoning would help prevent the community from being dismantled.
TRUTH: Labeling the ecologically destructive, for-profit, resource-intensive and extractive business which employs very few people at slave wages a “community” takes gall; like calling dozens of shacks of exploited coal miners who get black lung disease while their coal company bosses get millions a “village.” In fact, human “community” will be damaged by NOT quitting ranching… you just wait & see…
Some environmentalists argue that removing farming and ranching will restore Point Reyes to a more natural state. Among their concerns are water quality issues created by manure, lack of biodiversity, invasive species overpopulation, land deterioration, and habitat destruction. They argue that livestock agriculture is fundamentally incompatible with ecological conservation.
TRUTH !: His first completely truthful paragraph! How does that feel to write for a dramatic change, Mr. Rancher? Strange, I bet.
But the removal of responsible farmers from Point Reyes doesn’t restore nature — it neglects it. For more than 30 years, Straus Family Creamery, which I founded, and its network of supplying organic family farms have shown that responsible farming restores ecosystems. Organic and regenerative farming practices can reduce GHGS, put carbon back into the soil, and foster healthy soils that help landscapes adapt to drought, flooding, and severe storms.
TRUTH: Ah, back in the lying, self-serving saddle again. No, we’re so sorry, Rancher Albert. But you haven’t said a bloody truth all paragraph. Raising cows (and slaughtering them all as children) is the most environmentally devastating “farming” practice today. And the science proves it, HERE.
On my Straus Dairy Farm near Point Reyes, I have worked to implement a carbon-neutral farming model. We are working toward on-farm carbon neutrality by reducing methane emissions from animals over 90% while maximizing soil carbon sequestration through regenerative practices like compost application and intensive rotational grazing. Farming responsibly can provide measurable, scalable climate solutions while feeding local communities high-quality, nutritious food.
TRUTH is running out the door, screaming, in response to this total and complete fabrication. While appealing to cheese, ice cream and beefsteak lovers, this is utter non-science. THIS IS THE CORE LIE of “regenerative ranching” — that the problem is the solution; that somehow moving cows around doesn’t still destroy more land. And then of course, hey, “compost.” Compost sounds good, let’s throw that word in the eco-B.S. salad too!
READ the UGLY TRUTH about so-called “regenerative ranching,” which is as curative as “regenerative toxic waste” or “regenerative spent nuclear fuel rods,” HERE: https://treespiritproject.com/regenerativebs/
OR READ:
How Big Ag Bankrolled Regenerative Ranching
Straus Family Creamery’s supplying dairy farms are working to adopt a similar model, as were 2 of our supplying farmers at Point Reyes. The farms and ranches on the preserve are not industrial-scale; they are small, deeply rooted, family-run operations. The threats introduced by removing these farms include a new land-management strategy that will likely lead to excessive growth of coastal scrub brush, resulting in soil degradation and an increased risk of wildfires.
TRUTH: Wild lands don’t need cattle grazing to “heal” or be “restored.” They never have. What they need is to NOT be grazed by for-profit cows, which fatten off the land, and are then quickly removed, to be slaughtered (while still young, btw) so their bodies can’t even decompose back into the soil, and feed wild animals, like dead bison once did. Before we exterminated most of them for our European imports, cows-for-profit.
As for wildfire, it’s often created in the first place by cattle grazing, which kills moist, evergreen vegetation in the west, and replaces it with annual grasses and plants which die and desiccate every year, to create increased wildfire danger.
Regardless, a national park is not where extensive land “management” belongs — and certainly not “management” by cows, which is like managing a forest with chainsaws. (Unfortunately, that’s now a thing too. READ about the equally non-science practice of “forest management.”)
Across California and America, dairy farms are vanishing. Farmers — the oldest workforce in the country, with a median age of 58 — are aging out of the trade and not being paid what they’re worth. Land and housing costs are unsustainable. In 1940, the United States had 4.6 million dairy farms. Today, there are around 26,000. With food demand projected to rise, farms are vanishing when we need them most.
The answer isn’t the removal of farmers — it is the expansion of certified organic farming models that restore the land while feeding local communities. Agriculture and nature preservation are not at odds; they are different aspects of the same vital endeavor.
TRUTH: He’s only 100% wrong with the omission of a single word: plants. Replace polluting, inefficient (and also brutal) animal “farming” with plant-based farming. Unlike raising large mammals (and birds) for human consumption, we humans can take our grandmother’s advice to “eat your vegetables.” Or at least lots more of them instead of all the cows and pigs and chickens and turkeys we do.
For those who neither live nor work in West Marin, it may be difficult to understand why we who do are so upset about the Point Reyes decision. To accept it is to accept that our area doesn’t have a future that includes resilient landscapes, a secure food system, and agricultural workers. To preserve this essential and diverse community, we must fight for the people who enable it.
TRUTH: Almost, but not quite. Change is often painful and disruptive, but it doesn’t have to be. What’s causing most of the pain for all the dairy & beef farmers’ is their own stubborn refusal to see reality. And to stop with the lies, so plentiful in this article. They only delay the inevitable, which is 8 billions humans not being able to raise 90 billion land animals every year to eat. READ MORE.
See the old Charlton Heston dystopian future flick, “Soylent Green” and you’ll see a pretty accurate depiction of what’s heading out way if we keep trying to raise animals — especially cows — for humans to eat. This old practice is not sustainable in the 21st century. Period.
TRUTH: He’s only 100% wrong with the omission of a single word: plants. Replace polluting, inefficient (and also brutal) animal “farming” with plant-based farming. Unlike raising large mammals (and birds) for human consumption, we humans can take our grandmother’s advice to “eat your vegetables.” Or at least lots more of them instead of all the cows and pigs and chickens and turkeys we do. Again, the word so flagrantly missing here is “plant-based” and ideally organic too, to be truly “regenerative” as opposed to extractive, polluting and suicidal, which is what raising cows for human consumption amounts to.
Anyone who shares this vision should contact Doug Burgum, secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, and Jessica Bowron, acting director of the National Park Service, and demand that they reverse the general management plan to allow commercial agriculture to continue at Point Reyes. This would create security for new tenants — a next generation of farmers who can produce food and practice sustainable, regenerative agriculture on that land.
Secondly, we need Burgum and Bowron to establish an Agriculture Trust — with a board and leadership that includes farmers — to manage and maintain the preserve as a working agricultural landscape, so that farmers and ranchers can live and work in harmony with nature. The only way to support the future of our food system is to keep our farms and communities intact.
– Albert Straus is a second-generation farmer and environmental innovator in dairy farming who owns Straus Dairy Farm in Marshall. He is the founder and executive chair of Straus Family Creamery and a life-long resident of Marshall.
TRUTH: We have only 2 choices:
1) we make the effort, now, to transition to plant-based eating, or;
2) keep delaying this inevitability, and be forced, later, to quit our habit of eating animals by our planet’s collapsing ecosystems.
3) BONUS BONEHEAD choice: buy a ticket on a Felon Musk’s rocketship to Mars-a-Lardo, and see where that gets you.
– The TreeSpirit Project