"It’s Not the How, It’s the Cow”: Can Regenerative Grazing Deliver on the Meat Industry’s Carbon Hoofprint Promises?

And tips on how to switch out other proteins for red meat

May 12, 2026

Although regenerative grazing has many benefits, feedlots have lower climate emissions per pound of beef. ANZCO Foods, Mike Quinn, Creative Commons

NYS Attorney General Leticia James won a $1.1 million settlement against meat giant JBS for false claims about its path to net zero climate emissions. McDonald’s is investing $200 million in regenerative grazing. Under pressure to reduce their climate emissions, the beef industry is turning to “sustainable” practices — with questionable results.

Beef is an important engine of the US economy, with sales totaling 45 billion dollars in 2025. Globally, beef provides much-needed, high-quality protein, and in some parts of Africa and South America, it may be the only protein source for rural residents in poorer regions. Eating beef and raising cattle is also foundational to our culture – whether it be cowboys and McDonald’s in the US, gauchos and asado barbecues in Argentina, or indigenous cattle-keeping traditions in southern Africa. Throughout much of the world, cows roam freely across rural landscapes, adding serenity and beauty. Steaks in the US, boeuf bourguignon in France, or biltong in southern Africa — many national dishes around the world feature beef. We love the taste.

Yet, as we become increasingly aware of the downsides of eating beef — livestock are responsible for 8% of total greenhouse gas emissions and 32% of global methane emissions, not to mention the noxious odors and polluted waterways emanating from feedlots — we are compelled to find more sustainable ways to feed our beef habit. One possibility is regenerative grazing — or allowing cows to spend their entire lives ranging free on pastures. Proponents of pasture-raised cattle claim: “It’s not the cow, it’s the how,” suggesting that how we raise livestock is more important than cutting beef consumption. The question becomes: Does regenerative grazing solve the beef climate problem?

“Future US demand in an entirely grass-and forage-raised beef scenario can only be met domestically if beef consumption is reduced, due to higher prices or other factors. If beef consumption is not reduced and is instead satisfied by greater imports of grass-fed beef, a switch to purely grass-fed systems would likely result in higher environmental costs, including higher overall methane emissions.”
Matthew Hayek and Rachel Garrett

The How: Cow Poop in Pastures Could Help Soils Store Carbon

To answer the question about whether regenerative grazing reduces greenhouse gas emissions relative to feedlots, one first needs to understand how beef cows are raised. In the US, cows spend their first 12 or so months grazing freely. Once their bones are fully developed, most cows are confined to feedlots, where they eat corn, alfalfa, and other nutritious feed. They fatten up to their slaughter weight of 1400 lbs in around another 6 months, for a total lifespan of 18 months. Because there are about 90 million cows in the US, each one spending 60% of its life in pastures, we commonly see beef grazing as we drive across the US. This is despite the fact that 99% of US beef cows spend their final months in feedlots.

With regenerative grazing, cows remain in pastures rather than heading off to feedlots. The thinking goes that because these pasture-raised cows poop at random throughout a field, the nitrogen in their manure acts like fertilizer. It spurs plant growth, which absorbs carbon from the air. Plants transport the carbon to their roots, and the carbon ends up stored in the soil. If pastures can capture and store significant amounts of carbon, pasture-raised beef will have lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to beef “finished” in feedlots, where the concentrated cow manure releases the strong greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide.

That sounds like a win for regeneratively-grazed beef, but unfortunately, the data point to a much more complicated picture. The overall carbon budget has multiple moving parts, including the cow’s digestive tract and overall land use.

Evidence for Soils Storing Carbon Is Weak

Scientists have conducted enough studies on regenerative grazing, feedlots, and greenhouse gas emissions that we can now pool the results in what is called a meta-analysis. A meta-analysis reviews multiple studies that attempt to answer a particular question, evaluates the rigor of each study’s research methods, and then analyzes the collective results to produce a more robust answer than a single study can.

Two recent meta-analyses looking at cows and soil carbon storage, one analyzing 70 previous studies and the second 28 earlier studies, reached the same conclusion. The highest quality studies — those that compared soil carbon in regenerative grazing and feedlots over time and at different soil depths, and that accounted for previous land uses that might affect soil carbon — showed no increase in soil carbon under regenerative grazing. The meta-analyses found no patterns to explain the results — for example, they did not find higher soil carbon in rainy regions compared to arid regions. Alarmingly, the low-quality studies showing carbon benefits from regenerative grazing are the ones being touted by some scientists, the public, and meat companies, convincing the public that grass-fed beef is better for the environment than feedlot-finished beef.

“Low-quality evidence dominates the discussion around the climate benefits of alternative grazing strategies, underscoring a critical need for stronger evidence before asserting climate change mitigation benefits from alternative grazing practices.”
Jonathan Sanderman et al.

It’s the Cow, Not the How: Most Cow Emissions Come from Cow Burps on Pastures and in Feedlots

Proponents of regenerative grazing rightly point out that we need to account for the emissions from producing corn and other feeds cows consume in feedlots. Feed production contributes only 15% of livestock emissions. The majority of a cow’s emissions — 64% — come from methane that cows burp up during the 12 months they spend grazing in pastures. Only 19% of cows’ emissions come from burps and manure in feedlots. This is because the corn and other high quality feeds cows consume in feedlots is more digestible than grass on pastures and thus reduces cows’ methane emissions. Plus, cows spend fewer months in feedlots compared to pasture. For these reasons, cows on feedlots have a lower carbon “hoofprint” than regeneratively-raised cows. To put it bluntly, nutritious feeds allow cows to gain more weight more quickly in feedlots, and thus to meet their fate after having lived a shorter life in which to emit greenhouse gases.

How cattle produce methane | Simplified version of flic.kr/p… | Flickr — All cows emit the strong greenhouse gas methane, but cows eating high quality feed produce less methane per pound of beef. ILRI

More Cows, More Methane, More Land

Grass-finished cows on pastures live longer but never reach the same weight as grain-finished cows slaughtered on feedlots. This means that to meet our current demand for beef with only grass-fed beef, we would need to increase our cattle population by 30%. More cows means more methane emissions. Regardless of whether cows finish their lives on pasture or in feedlots, methane from their burps dominates their greenhouse gas emissions.

If we only ate grass-fed beef, scientists have calculated that we would see a 43% increase in methane from enteric emissions per pound of beef. This amounts to an 8% increase in total US methane emissions.

More cows also means more land in pastures, which contribute so much to our rural landscapes. The problem isn’t pastures per se. It’s what pastures are replacing. If forests and native grasslands are plowed under for pasture, carbon stored in those more natural systems is released. This contributes further to climate change. We will need to plow our natural lands to supply the growing demand for grass-fed beef, as we can produce only 27% of today’s beef output on current pastureland.

Of course, grass-fed beef fetches a higher price at the grocery store. Beef prices already rose 14% in the last year, and inflation from the Iran War, along with a declining beef herd linked to climate change-induced droughts, will undoubtedly drive beef prices even higher. With higher prices and lower supply, Americans might seek beef from other countries. This will drive up emissions even more, as despite the outsized emissions of cows in the US, we produce beef more efficiently than other countries. Years spent perfecting cow breeds and feeds means that US cows now grow quickly to their outsized slaughter weights. Less efficient foreign beef means higher emissions per pound of beef.

“Folks have claimed that [regenerative grazing] pulls so much carbon out of the atmosphere and into the soils through healthier soil that it completely offsets or negates cattle’s methane emissions. That’s not correct.”
Matthew Hayek, Professor and expert on climate impacts of our global food system, New York University

Where’s the Beef for the Climate Concerned

So, we are left with a dilemma. Perhaps, unsurprisingly, given the hype about regenerative agriculture and “real” foods, American consumers are demanding more grass-fed beef. Although it currently accounts for only 1% of total domestically produced beef, grass-fed beef is the fastest growing part of the market. Suppliers, seeing a 20-35% annual growth in the grass-fed beef market, are shifting domestic production to grass-finished beef. McDonald’s recently announced a partnership with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and US Department of Agriculture to invest $200 million in regenerative ranching. The announcement rightly states many of the benefits of regenerative ranching, such as more humane treatment of animals, conserving water and supporting rancher livelihoods. McDonald’s obviously also has carbon benefits in mind. It plans to hire Carbon Yield, a firm that “helps farmers and ranchers access new revenue streams in greenhouse gas and conservation programs,” to measure any changes in soil carbon in its regenerative pastures. Unfortunately, unless we make great strides in reducing emissions from pasture-raised beef, I’d treat any carbon gains McDonald’s eventually claims with a degree of suspicion.

I have gone round and round with solutions to the beef problem. Beef protein is important for many people for many reasons. But as I look at proposed solutions to our polluting beef system, whether it be regenerative agriculture, feed additives, or methane-inhibiting vaccines, I come to the same conclusion as an author of one meta-analysis: “only reductions in beef consumption can guarantee reductions in the environmental impact of US food systems.” How to reduce our beef consumption is another big challenge, to be taken up at another time.