Loudoun County is home to dozens of cattle farms using responsible and sustainable practices to produce the best beef with the lowest environmental impacts. How do they do it? It starts with scaling things down. Industrial farms tend to make less efficient use of their grasslands, either over-grazing or rotating herds through depleted fields. This taxes the vegetation, leading to less carbon capture (greenhouse gasses) and more runoff (damaging waterways). Most of Loudoun’s farms are fewer than 50 acres, which encourages farmers to try adaptive multi-paddock feeding, which is a great strategy for the environment.

At peak efficiency, cows can eat 130 pounds of grass each day, but they also crush grass when they lay down to rest. By rotating them quickly though a succession of small fenced-in areas, farmers can ensure they always have fresh grass and old fields have time to rest before the next rotation. This has been shown to decrease run-off and increase carbon capture, two essential environmental considerations.