I was walking through one of our pastures this week when I noticed an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail feeding among the flowering plants.

It isn’t a rare butterfly in Indiana. In fact, it is one of the more familiar native butterflies in our part of the country.

That may be exactly why it caught my attention.

We spend a lot of time at Tyner Pond Farm talking about grass-fed beef, but when I looked at that butterfly I started thinking about how incomplete those two words really are.

A pasture can grow grass and feed cattle while supporting very little else. Or it can be a much more complicated biological community with grasses, clovers, broadleaf plants, flowers, insects, birds, microorganisms, and wildlife all occupying the same piece of ground.

Both could technically produce “grass-fed beef.”

They are not the same farming system.

The Butterfly Doesn't Tell Us Whether the Steak Will Be Good

I want to be careful about the claim here.

Seeing an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail in a pasture does not prove that the beef from that farm will taste better. One butterfly is not a soil test, a nutritional analysis, or a measure of cattle performance.

But it does tell us something about the place where those cattle are living.

An adult butterfly needs flowering plants for nectar. Other stages of its life depend on suitable host plants and habitat. When we see butterflies, bees, birds, and other insects using our farm, it is evidence that the land is providing resources for species besides cattle.

That matters to us.

Over the years, our definition of a good pasture has changed. At one time, it would have been easy to judge a field almost entirely by how much cattle forage it produced.

We still care enormously about forage density. The cattle need enough food, and our ability to finish them entirely on pasture depends on producing plenty of it.

But we now ask another question too:

How much life can this pasture support while it is producing food?

We Don't Want a Pasture Made From One Plant

One of the things regenerative grazing has taught us is to become much more comfortable with diversity.

We are not trying to create fields containing one perfect grass species.

Our cattle walk into mixtures of grasses, clovers, broadleaf plants, seed heads, and whatever else a particular paddock and season have produced. One pasture may look quite different from another. The same pasture may look different in May than it does in August.

We manage around that variation rather than trying to eliminate it.

That is partly why we have spent so much time selecting cattle genetics that fit our system. We want cattle capable of making good use of diverse forage rather than animals that require us to create a highly controlled diet around them.

Around the farm, we sometimes say we want cattle that “eat like goats.” We mean curious, adaptable grazers that are willing to use the variety the land provides.

The more diversity we have in the pasture, the more choices those cattle have.

And the cattle are not the only ones benefiting from that diversity.

Flowers Aren't Wasted Forage

A flowering plant in a pasture can be easy to dismiss if you are looking only at pounds of beef per acre.

The cow may not eat every flower.

But an insect may use it.

That insect may become food for a bird. The plant's roots may occupy a different depth in the soil than the grass beside it. Its flowers may support pollinators. Its leaves may provide forage at a different time of year. Its presence may simply add another biological option to the system.

That doesn't mean every plant is desirable or that we ignore invasive species and serious weeds.

It means we no longer assume that something has no value simply because the cattle are not eating it at this particular moment.

The pasture is doing more than feeding one species.

That Eastern Tiger Swallowtail was a very visible reminder of that.

This Is Part of What We Mean by Soil Health

People sometimes hear “soil health” and imagine a farmer talking about dirt.

What we are really talking about is a living system.

Healthy soil supports plants. Those plants capture sunlight and carbon dioxide and send energy below ground through their roots. Microorganisms interact with those roots and organic material. Water moves through the soil. Grazing animals return nutrients in manure and urine. Plant residue protects the surface.

Above that soil is another layer of life.

There are insects feeding on plants, insects feeding on other insects, birds feeding on insects and seeds, and cattle harvesting forage.

None of those relationships operates entirely on its own.

That is why reductionist thinking can be so limiting in agriculture. We can measure how many pounds of forage a field produced or how many pounds an animal gained and learn something useful.

But those numbers do not tell us everything happening on that acre.

Sometimes a butterfly helps remind us to look at the rest.

Biodiversity and Food Production Don't Have to Compete

There is an old assumption in agriculture that land either produces food or it produces wildlife habitat.

Our experience keeps pushing us away from that distinction.

The cattle in this pasture are producing food.

At the same time, flowering plants are supporting insects. Taller vegetation provides cover. Birds use the same landscape. Roots are growing below the surface. Soil organisms are doing work we will never see.

We don't have to remove the cattle to make those things happen.

We have to manage the cattle in a way that leaves enough biological opportunity for the rest of the system.

That is one reason recovery matters so much in our grazing program. The cattle create a short period of disturbance and then leave. The plants get time to regrow. Flowers return. Roots recover. Other species get time to use the habitat before the herd comes back.

The goal isn't to make the farm untouched by animals.

The goal is to use livestock as part of a living system rather than trying to simplify the system around the livestock.

So What Does a Butterfly Tell Us About Grass-Fed Beef?

It tells us almost nothing about the steak by itself.

But it tells us something important about the farm behind the steak.

It tells us that this pasture is capable of supporting more than cattle.

It tells us there are flowering plants here. There are insects using them. There is diversity above the soil as well as below it.

And it reminds us that the words grass-fed beef leave a tremendous amount of the story untold.

Where did the cattle live?

What kind of pasture did they graze?

How was that pasture managed?

What else was able to live there?

Was the goal simply to produce as much beef as possible, or was the farmer also paying attention to the condition of the land producing it?

Those questions matter to us because our cattle aren't raised separately from this place.

They are part of it.

The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail isn't the beef.

But it tells you something about the farm behind the beef.

And increasingly, I think that is worth paying attention to.

Good food begins with a place.

FAQ's

What does biodiversity have to do with grass-fed beef?

Grass-fed cattle live within a pasture ecosystem. The plants, soil organisms, insects, birds, rainfall, cattle, and grazing management all interact. Biodiversity can therefore tell us something about the biological complexity of the place where the cattle are being raised.

Does seeing butterflies mean grass-fed beef is better?

No. The presence of a butterfly does not prove anything about beef flavor, nutrition, or quality by itself. It does show that the pasture is providing resources for species beyond cattle, which tells us something about the habitat surrounding the animals.

Why are flowering plants important in cattle pasture?

Flowering plants can provide forage diversity for livestock while also supplying nectar and habitat for insects. Different plant species also contribute different root structures and seasonal growth patterns to the pasture.

Why does Tyner Pond Farm care about wildlife if the farm raises cattle?

Because we do not see food production and biodiversity as separate goals. Our cattle need productive pasture, but we also want the same land to support insects, birds, soil organisms, and other wildlife wherever possible. The question we increasingly ask is: How much life can this land support while still producing food?