Livestock farmers in Germany, Italy, Sweden and the UK are trying a new method to produce milk and meat: feeding their cows mainly or only grass.
Livestock farmers in Germany, Italy, Sweden and the UK are trying a new method to produce milk and meat: feeding their cows mainly or only grass.
Cattle diets usually include a variety of grains, which make the animals grow faster and—by extension—their meat and milk cheaper. But the practice has hefty environmental and social costs.
The grains are often imported from far-away countries like Brazil, meaning long transport routes and higher maritime emissions.
Many of these crops are also cultivated on land created by cutting down parts of tropical forests, contributing to climate change by releasing carbon dioxide stored in trees and causing biodiversity loss.
In addition, by serving as animal feed, such grains cut into much-needed supplies of food for people worldwide. A further concern for many people in Europe is that the grains, when they’re maize, are frequently genetically modified.
A research project is drawing inspiration from some beef producers in the UK who have switched to 100% grass-fed cows.
The farmers have also created a special meat and dairy label to inform consumers of the production method and its health benefits, which include lower fat and higher vitamin levels.
“A 100% pasture-fed method is challenging,” said Laurence Smith, a former farmer who is now a food-systems researcher at the University of Reading in the UK and at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “But it’s potentially quite a sustainable system.”
Smith coordinates the EU project, which is called PATHWAYS and promotes more sustainable agricultural practices including pasture-based farming. It runs for five years until the end of August 2026.
Like the UK producers, participating German, Italian and Swedish livestock farmers are feeding some of their cows grass-based diets, albeit with some concentrates.
The practice has other environmental benefits: grazing animals return nutrients to the soil through feces and urine and such pastures can absorb CO2 from the atmosphere by having trees—a form of agroforestry known as silvopasture.
But a central question is whether feeding cows mainly or only grass offers farmers themselves advantages, without which any broad take-up of the method is unlikely.
