A single acre of perennial grassland can be home to more than a
million creatures, and trillions upon trillions of
microorganisms, which the entire ecosystem depends on. When you
clear that acre for rows of the shallow-rooted annuals of plant
agriculture, you obliterate the habitat for all of those
creatures, with many of them dying absolutely horrific deaths
in the process, being crushed and ripped apart at the seams,
and the microorganisms that the entire ecosystem depends on are
annihilated through oxidization. You also take away the deep
rooted perennial grasses that maintain soil structure, control
water runoff and increase water tables, and cycle essential,
hard to reach nutrients across the entire ecosystem.
Conversely, if you use that same acre to pasture a ruminant,
instead of wiping out the habitat for the million creatures
living there, and annihilating the soil vitality, you actually
increase the health of the land, increase biodiversity, create
deeper root systems that cycle nutrients and control runoff,
increase native pollinator habitat, which increases
agricultural yields, and massively increase soil vitality. One
cared for ruminant that lived an idle, protected life of
munching on grass dies instead of all of that devastation
caused by plant ag.