Pasture vs trees

FAI Farms and McDonald's

Transcript

Claire Hill 0:00  
One aspect, which causes great debate at the moment is grassland versus trees. Should we just be planting trees everywhere? And the question often gets asked is well, which is best. And I think the key thing to remember, like in everything, it's all about balance and diversity. So the one good thing about grassland is it's providing a food source. And so taking grassland out of production to plant trees isn't necessarily a good thing. But where we've got big areas of open grassland bringing trees in, can be a good thing. There's scientific papers that back both, some would say that trees are better, some would say that grassland is better. But the key thing to remember is that we're producing food from a grassland. And often, when planted trees, particularly in the northern hemisphere, they tend to be timber production only. With the carbon from grassland, it's under the ground rather than above the ground. It's locked in, it's fairly stable, it's fairly secure. And there are a number of different ways in which that carbon gets down into the ground. One is through photosynthesis, and the liquid carbon pathway that takes the carbon underground. The other is with trampled and rotting material, which adds to the organic matter within the soil and lots of carbon down that way. Potentially with trees, that carbon is still above ground in the main and although we don't see it so much in this country, we're starting to see it we see it now is with fires, trees can easily get burned down and then that carbon is in the atmosphere and all that great work has gone away, whereas an active grassland that's been grazed and managed regeneratively. That continuous cycle of carbon back into the soil is ongoing. And when we manage regeneratively and we're trying to aim for deeper roots, we're taking that carbon deeper and deeper into the soil all the time.