Mootopia

Couldn't put it down. It's dynamite. In modern "demonize cows" mentality, the poor creatures get blamed for everything from heart disease to climate change.MOOTOPIA is the ultimate antidote for cow hate. Ben Sargent and Mary Lin condense the best ecology understanding into common language to bring even the most ardent cows-are-bad advocate into another way of thinking. Fortunately, this book separates good cattle management from poor cattle management, allowing cow disparagement credence while explaining a better approach. For those of us who sell well-managed grass-finished beef or grassfed dairy products, this little book offers foundational affirmation of our vocation. Direct-to-consumer farms will want to give one to every customer.

Joel Salatin

Polyface Farm (blog: The Lunatic Farmer)

Editor, The Stockman Grass Farmer

Mootopia will really make you think about how animals, plants, and the soil are interconnected. There is a need to get the crops and the animals back together. Rotational grazing and integrating grazing animals with crops can improve soil health. Contact with farm animals early in life can also reduce allergies in people. The authors provide scientific references for many of their ideas. In some parts of the book, there are claims that are extreme. Ideas that may be considered fringe and far out today can sometimes become mainstream in the future. Over the years, I observed how probiotics for farm animals changed from over the top and weird to being advertised at giant trade show displays. Readers who are interested in agriculture and farming should read this book.

Temple Grandin

Author of Animals in Translation and Animals Make us Human

Distinguished Professor, Dept of Animal Science, Colorado State University

You've done such a creative job of integrating science into practice, highlighting the implications, and finally describing what we can do about that now. Great work!

Fred Provenza

Author of Nourishment: What Animals Can Teach Us

Professor Emeritus, Dept Wildland Resources, Utah State University

That was wonderful! Fabulous book. Rich in common sense. I love the storytelling voices you have. The resources are a great value. I'll be exploring those. One of the best things a book like this can do is make complex ideas and information more accessible to the mortal man and woman, and Mootopia does that very well. There are some intricate details and concepts that go beyond the familiar view of nature's systems but you make it an easy ride.

Stephanie Anderson

Publisher, Editor-in-Chief

Selene River Press

The book is a FANTASTIC introduction to the importance of holistic management of pastures, and of the extraordinary role that grasslands and ruminants can play in the management of our biodiversity, atmosphere, and health. It is written in an engaging style, so I hope it reaches a broad audience!

Patrick Worms

President, International Union of Agroforestry

I am enjoying your book! Especially where clouds follow rivers in degraded environments. I have been observing and saying this for a long time.

Jaime Elizondo

Real Wealth Ranching

The book reads very well! It's a fun book to read, following in the footsteps of Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis (that's a compliment!), full of interesting historical facts and ecological examples of how major processes in nature are linked, become stronger or provide resilience when they work together, and how it's all very fragile in the end too. Overall, I found your book very inspiring (I myself grow up and still leave in a very rural area with cows and all), and I'll recommend this to my students!

Pierre Amato

Universit© Clermont Auvergne

Laboratoire Microorganismes: G©nome et Environnement