In my work as a grazier there's a lot of loose thinking and suspicious claims about methods and results. A recent example of that is a claim that animals raised in cold climates - either due to latitude or altitude - have higher levels of omega-3 and CLA. Why?

This seems preposterous since most of the forage for most of the year in such places is stored forage - hay, silage, dried grains etc. My reaction is that this claim can at best be true only for a brief period each year, and that I suspect that it has more to do with the species of forage available than the cold climate per se.

It's hard to get straight answers from researchers since they seem to have an agenda. The research on this subject wants to show a benefit to cold climate grazing in order to justify continuation of the practice even though it is comparatively unproductive and expensive. Much of the work was done in Switzerland and is designed to justify subsidies for highland grazing though it makes no economic sense other than for maintaining one type of tourism.

A closer look at the studies seems to support my suspicion that it is forage species that matters rather than climate. Pastures with red clover and birdsfoot trefoil seem to produce meat and dairy with higher levels of CLA. These species can be grown in warmer climates and lower elevations. In fact, they are both renowned for being more heat tolerant than some other legumes.

Another issue is the type of stored forage fed during the non-grazing portion of the year. It seems that feeding grass silage and hay helps keep the levels of good fats higher, and that silage is better than hay in some cases. When silage is made from fresh, unwilted grasses it retains more healthful benefits. Hay, OTOH, must be wilted down to a lower moisture content before being baled or it will rot, and so loses nutritional value.

This all leads me to the exact opposite conclusion to the cold climate claims. Animals in warmer climates where grazing of fresh pastures is possible for more of the year will produce the most healthful products so long as the pasture composition is good.

Of course this is the conclusion that fits my agenda. I graze 12 months of the year. It's harder in the winter since the photoperiod is short even though the temperatures are high enough to grow grass, but possible. I do have high species diversity, including red clover and trefoil, to get both the productivity and nutritional benefits of polyculture.

The same sorts of politicized obfuscation afflicts research about organic methods, water use, energy use, etc. etc. When you drill down through the wild claims all that is left is a confirmation of a little common sense growers wisdom. I guess my mudge is that I wish that they didn't make us work so hard to winkle the meager bits of information out of the politicized craparooney.