The Truth About Regenerative Grazing with Jennifer Molidor and Ashley Capps

Jasmin Singer: I'm so excited to have both of you. As I was saying, just before we hit record, our paths have crossed in the last many years in a variety of capacities.

And, I'm always tickled when the animal rights world sort of shifts around like a Jenga game and here we are all in this virtual room and I'm thrilled with the work you're doing.

Mariann Sullivan: I just want to say Jennifer kind of got her start on Our Hen House.

That's a ridiculous characterization, but you were kind enough in our very early days to write a few pieces for us, book reviews, I think, and maybe something else.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah,

Ashley Capps: I didn't know that.

Jasmin Singer: We used to have like a online magazine and Jennifer was such a, incredible part of that. And so, yeah, it is very exciting to see you and to have followed your career a bit, both of your careers. And with that, let's start by each of you telling us a bit about your work right now. And, kind of the short version of your journey to get here as it relates to animals.

Jennifer, let's start with you.

Jennifer Molidor: I'm so excited to be here and reconnect with all of you. As you were mentioning, I started out working at the Animal Legal Defense Fund and it was that capacity that I was writing some articles for you and did some interviews. And I'm now the senior food campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity where I'm still doing the good work for animals, but this time the other side of the fence, so to speak, trying to protect wildlife who are harmed by the horrible atrocities of factory farming.

Jasmin Singer: Hmm. Well, there's a lot there. I mean, that was definitely the short version of your journey because I know that you've just been involved in so many different campaigns and outreach. But Ashley, let's turn to you. How are you here in our little square on our screen right now?

Ashley Capps: Well, you mentioned that Our Hen House had been involved in Jennifer getting her start, but you all probably won't remember that you actually were involved in me getting my start, too, in my animal advocacy career, back in, gosh, uh, 2012, I think it would have been, so more than a decade ago. I was going through a really difficult time in my life personally.

My background is that I'm a poet, I had just gotten a big NEA grant to work on my second book of poems, but things were such I was in a really, really difficult marriage, and for the first time in my life, I found that I couldn't write or work on my poems, and I couldn't finish my second book.

I could barely get it started. Eventually, after months of this going by, I realized I was just wasting this once in a lifetime grant, and that I needed to put that on pause and figure out something else to do with my life. And that was a really big kind of identity crisis, painful question, like, what would I do if I wasn't a poet? And I had never asked myself that question before, but the answer came really quickly, and it was just, I would want to write for animals somehow. And I didn't know what that looked like. I didn't know what a career doing that looked like, but I was vegan. I was already a long time vegan.

I started reaching out to, like, what are the few jobs you could get writing for animals? Reaching out to groups like, at the time, Compassion Over Killing or Farm Sanctuary. I was like, they all at least have to have one communications person, but those jobs were hardly ever open. And then if they would open up, I thought that I had a really great writing portfolio to point to.

I had worked as an art writer, freelance, and done, like I said, way too much graduate school. So I could point to all these essays and things and scholarship, but they wanted someone with experience in animal advocacy writing. So, I was like, okay, let me go back to the drawing board and do some of that.

Well, you guys at the time when I was figuring this out, you had put out, I think in response to some New York Times article on like, they had put out an open call, tell us why it's ethical to eat meat. And you guys countered that with an essay invitation to people that was like, tell us why it's not ethical.

I saw that shared somewhere and I thought, okay, let me write this essay and I didn't win, but I got like finalist or second place or something. And so you all shared that piece and it happened to be seen, I think I'm remembering this correctly, by Jenny Brown who was at the time running Woodstock Farm Sanctuary and she shared it.

And I was about to apply for a job, like running their, Airbnb or something, but really, I wanted to just write for them. So I interviewed for that job, it didn't work out, they loved me though. And I said, well, really, all I wanted to do was write for you all.

Jenny, you shared my essay from Our Hen House.

And like, that's right. That's where I remember you from.

And so. So I, I ended up getting my first writing job writing the learn section of their website because I had written that essay.

Mariann Sullivan: Oh my

Ashley Capps: Yeah, and Jenny had loved that essay, and then I ended up writing a long piece for them on how animal agriculture contributes to global hunger and food insecurity that Dawn Moncrief at A Well Fed World, still my boss, more than a decade later, saw and was like, Hey, nobody writes about this and you did a great job, you want to write for us?

And so, yeah,

Jasmin Singer: Wow.

Mariann Sullivan: That is crazy.

Ashley Capps: So, it's a small world.

Mariann Sullivan: I know. I totally forgot about that. Oh my God.

We're all so old. It's unbelievable.

Jasmin Singer: You know, before we started this, I was thinking back to like how I knew both of you and I always want to Google in my brain, but it, your brain doesn't work like that, unfortunately.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.

Jasmin Singer: But wow,

Mariann Sullivan: All right. There's a lot of things we could talk about.

Obviously, we could stroll down memory lane all day, but we want to get to a few of them at least, but the original topic that we really wanted your particular expertise on was the whole topic of quote unquote, regenerative grazing. We hear about it all the time, and I think probably everybody knows a little bit about it, and knows it kind of that it's a scam, but in light of the fact that, you know, it is one of the more prominent false hopes that a lot of people are hanging on to. Oh, yeah, we can have beef. There's regenerative grazing, whatever the hell that is. we need to know more, and we need to understand this a little better. Jennifer, I know this is a real focus for you. What do people mean when they say regenerative grazing?

Jennifer Molidor: Well, that's just it, Mariann. I don't think people are in agreement about what that means, and there's no clear, established, or

Mariann Sullivan: Convenient, isn't it?

Jennifer Molidor: Right, exactly. So it's this sort of nebulous, poorly defined thing that is unclear what they're talking about, and that sort of matches the science in terms of there not being established science that proves all of these big, outsized claims to make cattle, which is by far the most environmentally destructive food source on the planet, somehow miraculously a climate solution or an environmental solution. And so a lot of these big claims about regenerative, are based on the claim, at its very root, that cattle, by their hoof action, can regenerate the soil into something healthy and more productive for agriculture. Of course, that discounts so many other things, which I know we will get into.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, let's do it. Let's get into it. Jennifer, on the Grazing Facts website, you go into the myths about regenerative grazing and you debunk them one by one. So can you give us some of the most salient myths that people hang on to and tell us why they're wrong. And no pressure, but our entire listening audience is going to be bookmarking this episode.

Mariann Sullivan: One of the ones I particularly would like to unpack is the whole idea that cattle, there have always been bison, at least in North America. Bison are great, that's the way the world should be. Why are cattle not bison? Why are we not reiterating just what used to be in the past when we put cattle out there?

Jennifer Molidor: Well, at the heart of it, cattle are domesticated commercial livestock, and bison are wild animals. So the significance there is the difference in behavior. If there's a model of regeneration, the fact that the cattle are removed for slaughter removes the most regenerative part of the system or the equation there. And so that's the big problem, but they also behave differently. They roam differently, where cattle cluster into water sources and pollute it with manure. Bison eat vegetation differently, they graze differently. They graze in different areas. There's really so many different aspects to why bison are different than cattle and not a good exchange, but it also includes the fact that there was significantly less bison as well.

Jasmin Singer: I'm looking through it right now. There are so many other myths that I think all of us listening to this, myself included, are so frustrated with. I'm just going through these myths right now. Grazing is a conservation solution. Regenerative grazing is an effective ecosystem restoration solution.

Grazing is good for marginal lands. Let's talk about that one. Grazing is good for marginal lands.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, as long as I've been doing this, you know, you hear that there are lands that we can't grow plants on. So, of course, we should graze animals on them because all land should be used to feed more humans. Like, you know, that's the starting point of that theory. But, even though there may be land that it isn't such a good idea to grow plants on, that doesn't mean we should be using them for cows, right?

Is that your point?

Ashley Capps: Exactly, yeah. Roughly 80 percent of the agricultural land that we currently use is used for farming animals. So its the number one driver of deforestation and biodiversity loss. We don't even need that much agricultural land. Like, we need to put that land back into ecosystem services and rewilding. But because animal based foods use orders of magnitude more land than plant based foods do, than a lot of that land is being used inefficiently and wastefully. I mean, marginal lands is a misleading and harmful term because it implies that it's just not good for anything.

We need that land for ecosystems and for all of these wild animals who are important beings in their own right, but also really important to the ecosystem that we share with these other animals. Jennifer though, you can speak to that more too.

Jennifer Molidor: But it just takes us back to the question of bison So for example bison in their natural behavior create wallows and these are micro ecosystems for other wildlife and this is just overlooked when people are comparing cattle to bison because the impact on wildlife and the ecosystem is sort of left out of this equation, even though it's supposed to be, making these big claims with regenerative agriculture, about ecosystem health. The very fundamental premise that they're working with is not valuing biodiversity and wildlife and healthy ecosystems. Marginal lands drives me insane because it is an economic way of talking about this and not an environmental one, not one that is good for planetary health. So marginal lands tend to be, or can be, some of the most biodiverse hotspot regions in the world, right? So they might be really good for the planet, and for wildlife, and for endangered species, but maybe not for some producer's bottom line, or not, maybe not for a commercial interest. And that's not a great way to approach our environmental health, but it's also not the best way to make claims about agriculture.

We need to be more realistic about what's actually going on.

Ashley Capps: That's a great point.

Jasmin Singer: Are there any other myths that

Mariann Sullivan: Oh, there's one specifically I do want to go into. Fire. I see that a myth, I mean, I wasn't even really that aware of this is, I guess in the back of my mind, I've heard this said, but fire is kind of on all of our minds these days, I can't imagine why, and one of the myths that you put here is grazing is an effective wildfire solution. Why is that not true?

Ashley Capps: Jennifer is better on this than I am, but let's talk about cheatgrass.

Jennifer Molidor: Well, that's funny because I think Ashley's better on this than I am. So, um, yeah, but

the, the

Mariann Sullivan: you're both really, really it.

The

Jennifer Molidor: main premise is that the actual window for when cattle grazing or other grazing can be helpful is very, very small. So once again, it's this big overstated claim, where non native animals grazing this area, grazing it down to the bone, can actually make it worse and more flammable to intensify fire by introducing non native weeds.

So as Ashley mentioned, cheatgrass, these are highly flammable and as I said, they can intensify fire. So again, we need to walk back this giant outstated claim that we can just sort of mow down the fields and that will prevent the intensity of fire and climate impacted damages. It just doesn't hold up to the science.

Mariann Sullivan: It's unbelievable.

Ashley Capps: And also speaking of fires we have to look at, you know, people are now, at least since 2019, very familiar with the devastation happening in the Amazon rainforest with it basically being in a near constant state of burn. But what they're less familiar with is the fact that most of this burning is being intentionally set to clear pasture for beef cattle. Much of that beef is then being resold to places like the U. S. under the guise of grass fed beef, because they are technically in a pasture and they're eating grasses but those pastures are being cleared with fire to sate our endless demand for burgers and steaks.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, and actually, I mean, It's true, isn't it, that the Amazon, and I guess other places as well, it's just that the Amazon is the one that we focus on so much, is being destroyed for two types of animal agriculture, one is to graze cattle and one is to grow soy to feed to animals. Are these both competing uses of these lands?

Is one more prominent than the other?

Ashley Capps: I think we're seeing more deforestation for pasture for cattle. I think that we've attributed something like 80 percent of the deforestation in the Amazon is for beef alone. But the overwhelming majority of the deforestation for soy is happening also for animal feed, and in terms of which animals are getting that feed, it's more pigs and chickens than cows, although they do get some soy in their feed.

But that's more for poultry and swine operations. You know, proponents of meat and dairy love to spin even the soy thing against vegans and say, Yeah, the Amazon is being deforested for vegans and their soy, but only something like 6 percent or less of the soy coming out of there is actually ending up in tofu and

Mariann Sullivan: you imagine if all of the vegans are actually eating that much tofu?

Jasmin Singer: Well, and I kind of want to stick on this topic for just a moment because, Ashley, at A Well Fed World, I assume you focus on like more of the international aspects of the harms of grazing animals. And I'm curious, how are the myths the same and how are they different?

Mariann Sullivan: Internationally as opposed to US based.

Ashley Capps: Oh, I would say, well, I don't know that we focus more on the international myths. It's just more the standard American diet is the prevailing diet for much of the world, and then the aspirational diet for much of the world as well, but also just with global trade, like so much of what's happening with soy and the Amazon is U. S. driven, but it affects the global food system. So I don't know that I would say the myths are much different.

Mariann Sullivan: I mean, maybe this isn't... I mean I was the one who's kind of thought of that question I think what I was thinking of is that you so often hear that if we all stop eating meat, well, all these people in Africa will starve because they all have these herds of animals, as if, you know, that's what's really going on in Africa. And that seems like a kind of a myth that is specifically relegated, not even just internationally, but mostly to Africa, that has got to be completely untrue.

Well, maybe there are hints of truth in it, you know, as there so often are, but that really are very, very misleading. But I do feel like you still hear that so often.

Well, this is how people in Africa survive.

Ashley Capps: Sure. It's definitely the case that like traditionally pastoralists, subsistence herding communities, are grazing animals and certainly the case can be made that yeah, we see arid lands getting desertified by grazing all over the world, however, the impacts from traditional subsistence pastoralist farmers are not having anything like the impact that grazing in Western and European countries is having to the global landscape and to ecosystems.

It's not even comparable. one impact that is interesting that you are seeing is that climate change, as we all know, does disproportionately impact people in lower income countries and regions. And so, an effect on traditionally pastoralist herding communities, is that they are very much struggling as a result of climate change to maintain those traditional ways of life.

And so, one thing you see is that many pastoralist communities in Sub Saharan Africa are shifting to things like food trees, because a lot of those native food trees are more drought resilient than the animals who are just suffering in untold numbers, also because of climate change. And in these mass famines, just millions of cattle and sheep and goats who are perishing due to heat and lack of vegetation. I don't know if that's

Jasmin Singer: Yeah. Super helpful.

Jennifer Molidor: I just wanted to agree with Ashley that we really outsource our environmental impacts and other impacts of the food system. And there's this sort of romantic notion of grass fed beef and the family farmer here, where actually the majority of grass fed beef in the United States is imported.

And so a lot of the harms around the world from agriculture that we're even talking about are the problem coming from the diet of the global north, in particular the United States. And so we're seeing these false solutions where we're talking about, well, we got to feed the world, the population is growing by 2050, you know, it's going to be 10 billion. And the solutions to the problems of the global north are not the solutions to the problems of the global south and it's a false sort of equation there where the answer I've seen most ridiculously in an op ed in the New York Times where the solution was more factory farming and that's sort of putting us in this position where we just have to keep eating meat, we have to keep eating beef at this enormous amount that we're eating, which is, you know, in the United States, four times the global average, when it's not actually a choice between factory farming or grass fed beef. A more reasonable choice is obviously to scale down or eliminate beef completely. If people were to reduce beef in their diets about 90 percent in the global north, and particularly in the United States, we wouldn't have this additional deforestation issue. And so people are turning away from not eating animals or reducing meat in their diet as if that's sort of not an option on the table. And I think it needs to be when we're talking about policy solutions or all of this. So beware of those conversations where it's framed as if there's no other choice and there's no other way around it. For the United States to pull back on our meat production and consumption, that would make a big difference to all of this and help us feed everybody in the world as well.

Mariann Sullivan: I mean, we see that all the time. One of the places that I've been seeing it so much recently that drives me crazy is with manure, like getting the methane, dealing with methane and it is better to use methane than to release it into the air. But it's based on the assumption that we're just have to have all this methane that we're actually creating because we have the beef industry or the dairy industry. So you see that kind of argument all the time. It's starts with the assumption we are going to continue to eat what we're eating and how can we manage it best from there, which obviously makes no sense at all. But I think maybe the most insidious thing about all of this nonsensical talk is that the myth of regenerative agriculture, which is obviously counter to the reality of what's going on in the global south and the reality of feedlots, which is where cattle in the US actually spend their days, it seems to be used to prop up the reality. It just makes people think beef is okay, and it doesn't actually make them buy regenerative agriculture beef, which would probably, if it was actually done according to their claims, would cost a fortune. It just makes them think oh, beef is fine and I can eat that.

So what is the propaganda root between promoting regenerative agriculture and translating that into giving people permission to eat basically factory farmed animals? Is that the main thing that's going on here?

Jennifer Molidor: Yeah, it's propping up business as usual. As you were talking about with the manure and biodigesters, it's not just a situation of like, look, here's a problem, let's make it better. What they're doing is they're using that to expand factory farming, to produce more animal agriculture, right? They're not trying to keep it as it is, they're trying to expand their profits. And so you see that same problem with regenerative agriculture where regenerative agriculture in and of itself, trying to regenerate the soil, trying to make it more diverse in terms of organisms, make it a healthier way, pull back on the pesticides, make it organic, so forth. All of these things, great, but they really should be a baseline, bottom level, bare minimum. And then on top of that, when you add the idea that somehow massive amounts of livestock need to continue to be produced for this system, that's where you start to get the greenwashing because regenerative plant agriculture is great, right? But to make it greenwashed is to say that we need to have cattle as part of this system, and then you get film industry documentaries and all of this sort of media propaganda about how it's going to be the climate solution. We have here in California, I'm in the Bay Area, it's this big foodie hub, and I won't name names, but there are regenerative dairies, quote unquote, here, where you go out and you look at them and it's not what they're claiming at all.

It's bad for wildlife. There's no trees, no vegetation. The cows are in the mud. It's a terrible situation. So it's absolutely been co opted by these big meat companies as a way to recharacterize themselves as some how part of the solution when they're in fact the problem. So yeah, there's greenwashing in terms of what can actually be done by regenerative agriculture when livestock are involved, in terms of the claims about carbon sequestration, in terms of minimizing the impact of additional cows on the land, which not only creates biodiversity harm, the leading threat to the wildlife and endangered species, but also the increased production of methane, right? So it's just this endless loop of where the science isn't there, it doesn't support it, the claims where they do exist and are beneficial are then magnified way out of proportion of what can actually be proven. But the main thing that makes this impossible is that we don't have the land, we don't have the water to make this possible at scale. And so it would only work if it was to be part of a massive drawdown in terms of beef production, right? And that part of the equation is always left out of the conversation. Reduction has to happen. People have to eat less or no beef until we get to a more manageable quote unquote level, theoretically. And then on top of that, I would add that regenerative in and of itself is not that great ideal system because it doesn't take into account, the way that agroecology or another model might, the way that agriculture impacts the economy, gender equity, and justice for workers, and this sort of more idealized version that we could work towards. Regenerative is just sort of a slap on solution, not based in science, that does very little.

Ashley Capps: For me too, to answer the question, I do think the notion of, quote, regenerative grazing, so called regenerative grazing, is largely propaganda. And I think it's so powerful for a number of reasons. My personal theory, though, is that it starts out like any of these virtue washing fads do, with people who, at one time, were maybe well intentioned, but they know better now.

And the truth is, they just want to keep eating meat and dairy, and they think it tastes good, you know, that cognitive dissonance is pretty painful, so they have to come up with a new form of virtue washing to make themselves and others feel better about it. One of the first places you saw this trend and this term regenerative grazing was in the sustainable food movement. But what ends up happening is that it gets co opted by big industry, as happened with humane washing, which has been around for decades, health washing, like those, possibly at one point well intentioned trends, you know, regenerative grazing is promoted by people who do genuinely care about the environment or it's taken on by people who do, but it ends up always being co opted by big industry.

And eventually, when it starts being critiqued by scientists, then its proponents end up having to resort to just putting out junk science and depending on junk science. And so, I think it's become especially glaring as propaganda when we look at the fact that regenerative grazing has this halo couched in eco heroics. But when you compare it to industrial methods of rearing cattle, for example, or sheep or goats, it's way worse for the environment and for ecosystems. It uses at least two and a half times more land than, quote, factory farms or conventional methods of raising cattle. Cattle who are fed their natural diets of grasses and other forage emit three to four times more methane than cattle fed corn and soy in these awful, unnatural diets on feedlots. And they kill a lot more wildlife. You know, we have a horrific federal agency that's little known called wildlife services that exists solely to slaughter.

Mariann Sullivan: truly think Wildlife Services is pretty well known to our listeners.

Ashley Capps: Well, and they largely prop up quote, pastured operations, right? Because all of these actual carnivores, unlike us, who have to eat other animals to survive and who are painted as just vicious predators by the beef and dairy industries. And so they have wildlife services to come out and exterminate all of these, quote, predators via the most ruthless, brutal methods possible. That's happening for pastured operations. And bur burrows of gophers and other animals and den animals are being poisoned. I, I have written about wildlife services a lot, and so has Jennifer. You can read some of those articles, but again, so worse. uses two and a half times more land, emits three to four times more methane, and disproportionately, wildlife animals are being killed in the millions every year to support pastured, grass fed, regenerative operations. So, the fact that this movement is enshrining itself as this eco benevolent industry, as if it's actually going to save the world and fix climate change is just, it's the worst form of propaganda.

And it does end up being co opted by big beef and dairy again, like humane washing and health washing all do. The difference being like misinformation is one thing. It's spreading inaccurate information at times accidentally.

Disinformation, on the other hand, is doing that deliberately, and big meat and dairy rely on disinformation. We're living in the golden age of disinformation, or the golden arches of disinformation, right? Like, welcome to McDonald's, can I take your regeneratively grazed order? All of these companies are literally McDonald's, Walmart, like, they're all saying by 2030, half of our burgers will be regeneratively grazed.

If you look at, at McDonald's, like, playbook for the next four years, Project Quarter Pounder, aka Project .25, literally all it says is, tell them it's all regeneratively grazed. Like, that's what

Mariann Sullivan: Well, are they relying on the idea that nobody knows what that means? Because that would be, I mean, they can't do that. I mean, we don't have a big enough planet for them to actually do that. So it's just because it's, which brings me back to a question I had for you, Jennifer, which you mentioned right at the beginning of your answer to that last question, and that regenerative plant agriculture is great. And that's what I had always thought, except some people say that regenerative plant, it's really hard to say this word over and over, regenerative plant agriculture depends on manure. And some people don't say that. And, then they brought in this whole regenerative grazing. Can you like separate out, is there a type of regenerative agriculture that I would like? That actually is plant agriculture, that actually would, because the whole idea is that we should renew the land, and not use up the land in agriculture. That's a beautiful idea, but does it all depend on manure, even if we're growing plants? Or is there some that, that we can actually renew the land, we can actually feed ourselves, so we can actually not destroy the world in the process? Is that a real form of regenerative agriculture?

Jennifer Molidor: Well, Ashley knows about this as well and gave a great answer, I think, to your last question, starting with eco heroics and ending with the golden arches. But, to answer your question, Mariann, there is veganic farming and there are alternative types of farming that Ashley can talk to you a little bit more about, but I wanted to add that one of the things that I'm working on is trying to insert our values, what we're advocating for, into these policies, these opportunities where Policymakers are being misled or buying into these ideas of vague, regenerative claims, and they're putting it into policies, and they're highly funding these opportunities.

And so, I'm trying to find opportunities, really, where I've created a policy primer, and I've created a number of documents that people can share and visit on our website and check out. Um, just really gone to town with all of this sort of outlining of what regenerative agriculture could be, should be, and so forth, in terms of protecting biodiversity.

So, many people, I try to give them the benefit of the doubt. I think that many people are well intentioned, but even the connection between farming animals and impacting the environment and what that looks like, what an ecosystem integrity looks like, what non lethal management would look like, which is just to say in plain terms, not killing wildlife on the land. We need to lay that out more in policy, to be very clear, this is what it looks like, this is what it must be, this is how it works, people just have such misled ideas about coexisting with wild animals, so there's that to begin with, but putting it in terms of regenerative policy. We need this outlined very clearly of what it can actually do, what is realistic, and so forth.

So that could include, Mariann, what is possible in terms of manure, how much manure is needed. There are systems that would pull away from any input from farmed animals whatsoever. But I think that that in general can be a misleading path to take people on when people say, but we need the manure, we need the manure. The problem is we are awash in manure, right? That is not the crisis that we're facing. We're facing a crisis where Wildlife Services, as I'm sure we all know, killed 375 thousand native animals last year alone and they probably killed much more than that. It's a reckless system that's very destructive.

And so, for example, bare minimum, one thing that should be part of regenerative policy is to have non lethal management as much as possible, right? So, for my interest, I'm trying and have been trying for years, to take these big claims, walk them back, and outline what this can be, what it must be to meet any standards that would be called regenerative.

And I think in doing that, that forces people to be much more clear and rigid in science about what is actually going on. And again, these resources are available. I'd be happy to share them and talk more about them. But I think that that is one key step that we could have. In terms of setting out, how do we have a conversation about regenerative agriculture that can be informative and meaningful and lead to something real?

Jasmin Singer: Well, I do, as we start to wrap up, I, and gosh, we could keep you on for hours, but something keeps springing to mind and it's something that I hear a lot regarding regenerative agriculture, but also just regarding people who say they're trying to reduce meat, they'll say, you know, I hardly eat any red meat or something like that, you know?

So when so much of your work is focused on cattle, how do you make sure that the alternative that springs to people's minds is not chicken? I don't know which of you want to take that.

Jennifer Molidor: Well, I would just take that because the work that I'm doing, for example, with cities and counties, trying to work with them to make policies that are better for the planet is we start out with default veg. Let's just serve default veg menus, start from there, and I think that that's really important and as a group, we would distinguish ourselves from other groups who only focus on the carbon part of the equation or the climate part of the equation. and take red meat off the menu and then sort of problem solved. But that's not good enough for us. So we need to talk about it in the holistic system, environmental health. And when you look at that, that's when you get people to shift from beef to plants rather than from beef to other animals, seafood and chicken, because there are other environmental impacts from animal agriculture beyond beef and also beyond carbon.

Ashley Capps: And I think for me, I mean, I don't think you have to be, you should be vegan you know, if you're talking about this, but I'm, you don't have to be vegan to know... regenerative grazing is happening in the conversation of sustainability and planetary health. Anybody who's really paying attention to that conversation, and especially somebody who's an expert, or positioned as an expert in that conversation, is going to know that it's just basic science that plant based foods far and away are the most sustainable food on the planet.

I mean, in the largest meta analysis, the often cited Joseph Poore Oxford study, What's the actual title? Reducing Foods Environmental Impacts Through Producers and Consumers, 2019 2020 study. That was the largest study and meta analysis that has ever been done on food and farmings, and the different kinds of foods and farmings impact on the environment and on the planet.

And it found that far and away, overwhelmingly, the, the least sustainably produced plant based foods were so much better for the planet and all these different environmental metrics from ocean acidification to emissions to land use water. Far and away, plant based foods, the least sustainably produced plant based foods were better for all of those metrics than the most sustainably produced animal based foods.

And so it only makes sense not to be talking about chicken, or eggs, or pigs as, Hey, don't eat cattle, but eat these animals. If you really are speaking in service of planetary health and sustainability, you're gonna know, whether you're vegan or not, that plant based foods are the most sustainable foods. And so, yeah.

Jasmin Singer: Super quick follow up to that, are you getting invited to these conferences to talk, both of you? I mean, are the vegans allowed in yet?

Ashley Capps: I think, yes. You know, in my employer organization and non profit, A Well Fed World, it's our director Dawn Moncrieff who speaks at a lot of these things. Probably one that she speaks at almost every year, and it's definitely not a vegan conference, I have issues with their approach, like the Reducitarian Summit, but she's always, and I get, you know, there are people that we want to speak to there. But she's invited almost every year to speak at conferences like that, and so, probably not, I don't know so much with, like, regenerative agriculture conferences yet, but it's something to try for. Jennifer, what about you?

Mariann Sullivan: I would say, Jennifer, that, I mean, the Center for Biological Diversity, I think, is the most animal friendly of the environmental organizations, some of whom have barely, like, started to scratch the surface of caring about animals. And that's an organization that has really tried to bring animals into the conversation.

So would you say you're particularly well positioned to make some inroads here?

Jennifer Molidor: So I've been working on this for 10 years with this organization with the Center for Biological Diversity and I started out with a Take Extinction Off Your Plate campaign.

Ashley Capps: Yes, I love

Jennifer Molidor: And it started out as a sort of individual consumer, do the right thing campaign and we've really broadened it out to systemic policy, to larger issues, to corporate campaigns, to municipal policy, state policy, federal policy, and so forth. And what we've seen over the last decade is that when I started, I was tearing my hair out arguing with these environmental groups. Back then it was grass fed beef. Now it's morphed into regenerative beef and greenwashing and to be honest a lot of funders support regenerative grazing in the environmental movement, so it's very hard to search for funding if you are outspoken about regenerative grazing harms. But I have seen it come from where I was arguing with people behind the scenes, trying to push the movement forward, redirecting their misstatements in the press and so forth, to now they are on their own leading these initiatives, pushing back on regenerative grazing, pushing back on greenwashing, arguing for plant based and default veg commitments from other people, and then serving it, you know, at conferences and so forth. So I've seen a big transformation of the environmental movement. It's got a long way to go, I would agree, in many areas, but there is growing interest in plant based foods.

It's easier, I think to switch menus to environmentally friendly plant based defaults than it is to try to whittle away and switch to chicken here and, you know, so forth. Just have a bean burrito. Just, switch to plant based foods. And I think there's a lot of support from that because the evidence is so overwhelming. And it's so connected to planetary health, individual health, and better for animals on all sides of the fences.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I love that. I think just have a bean burrito should be the motto of this movement. It's really, I mean, certainly it's something we've been hearing that environmental organizations are getting a little less rigid about addressing these issues, but it's really nice to hear from someone who's actually involved that that, really is true. I mean, we do have to let you go. We've been talking for a long time. I wanted to switch topics a little bit just because, you know, the people who are listening are not necessarily involved in this as their work. But, you know, everyone lives amidst wild animals. And we're not always talking to people about wild animals.

We talk to people a lot about diet and about farm animals and stuff. But, you know, even if we live in the densest city, a lot of our lives are surrounded by these animals and our listeners really care about them. What are some of the ways you suggest supporting animals? Just speaking to the individuals who are listening, especially as the world becomes more and more precarious.

And in particular, I think that your site, Jennifer, is called Rewilding, like how can people be a little bit more supportive of the wild and of the animals who live there, whether we're talking about squirrels or going a little further afield.

Jennifer Molidor: Yeah, I think there's so many ways to get involved and it's one of my passion projects. I even write something for my small little rural town. I wrote for the local newspaper every month talking about crows and the wildlife that they can see and so forth and really just trying to encourage people to look more closely at the world around them and to bond with the birds, you know, putting out the bird feeders. In gardening groups you might, advocate strongly for people to use non lethal measures, to fall in love with possums and gophers and, you know, find other solutions. One of the ways that I got started here was that I had been writing about coyote killing contests and that part of the agricultural impacts on wildlife. And I really love coyotes. I really do. So I'm a big advocate for supporting coyotes, understanding coyotes, I'm working on a children's book about coyotes and so really at any level, whether it's your school or your local paper or your garden or your community, have a community garden, talk about organic and how you could produce it in harmony with the earth, but just even continuing to have conversations about wildlife as part of the advocacy that you're doing for farmed animals. is really important to get that whole picture of how you can help animals, but also to encourage people to love the wildlife around them. And it could be anything from a crow to a squirrel or so forth, but there's animals all around us, from the bees and the butterflies, and to just encourage that love of nature.

That's something I'm very passionate about, and I hope that people will use that as an advocacy tool to not just fight back, right? Like we're fighting all the time with these big corporations, but we have to nourish our souls as well by encouraging people to love the animals around them.

Mariann Sullivan: And you know, I think this is one of our easier asks people actually do, I mean, not everybody, there's a psychopath out there, as we all know, but most people actually do, like, they love wild animals. I mean, they love the animals around their homes and, there are conflicts, I suppose, but a great, great many people who will never think about farmed animals. We think of companion animals as being the gateway species, but I think squirrels can be too.

Jasmin Singer: love that. Can you both tell us how our listeners can follow your work and read more about these myths and support your efforts?

Ashley Capps: Yeah, so our website on grazing is way more coherent to readers than I feel like I speak about it So and I think Jennifer and I gosh, did we work on this for like a year and a half non stop researching and writing it? So we're really proud of it. We put a lot of time and really good research and resources into it so you can go to grazingfacts. com and pretty much have any of your questions answered, get directed to a lot more really good science on all of these issues. And then my non profit that I primarily work for is called A Well Fed World and you can find us Backslash A Well Fed World on all your favorite social media as well at A Well Fed World dot org and sign up for our newsletter and we're letting people know regularly about different sorts of plant based feeding and farming projects and hunger relief that we are supporting with the help of our supporters around the world.

Jasmin Singer: Amazing. Jennifer,

Jennifer Molidor: Yeah, I'm, really proud of grazing facts.com. Ashley and I did work on it for a long time, and we're continuing to add to it as well as we produce more resources. And then we have a take extinction off your plate.com, which is a website I've worked on for 10 years, and you could learn more about our work beyond grazing, but I also have a number of documents on there. Fact sheets, how cows affect climate, but also the work that we do in schools and cities and beyond. And then I have a newsletter called Food X that you can sign up for as well. And I am leaving the polluted world of social media to head towards blue sky.

So I'm live on there and I know Mariann is as well.

Jasmin Singer: What's your blue sky handle?

Jennifer Molidor: Just my name, Jennifer Molidor.

Jasmin Singer: Amazing. We'll put all of this in the show notes as well. Well, Jennifer, Ashley, thank you both so much for taking the time to enlighten us today on Our Hen House. We're so grateful that you're doing this work. I mean, you've really dispelled myths that so many vegans listening to this don't know how to address.

And so we're really, really grateful. And again, we'll link to everything in the show notes. If you're listening to this and you're driving, don't worry about it. We will have a link ready for you when you can safely pull over. So thank you both so much. Stick on the line for a little bit so we could chat with you for our flock bonus content.

Hopefully we'll chat with you soon.

Ashley Capps: Thank you so much.

Jennifer Molidor: Thank you.