Large herbivores were an integral part of the ecosystem across most of the continental United States. As many as 60 million bison roamed here before Europeans colonized the Great Plains. Our modern herd of livestock can easily be maintained here.

What could use some work is the way we use the land and soil to raise our livestock. I would love to see more sustainable ranching practices, such as returning some of the less desirable crop land to pasture. We raise grain to feed to livestock, but cattle did not evolve to eat large amounts of grain. They do better on grass. Producing cattle on pasture takes longer to bring cattle to market, but the trade-off is producers are able to eliminate inputs into their operation such as heavy farming machines, agricultural chemicals, and a portion of their fuel costs. There is also emerging evidence of the impacts farming chemicals have on farming families and on the environment.

Decades ago our Department of Agriculture sounded the alarm about world hunger. American farmers responded by ramping up production of staple crops such as corn and soy beans. We got so good at it we totally overshot the mark, so we started feeding our food crops to livestock. Why not just cut out all the extra work and let the cattle eat the grass which would grow naturally if we let it?