Jason Rowntree is a professor of Animal Science at Michigan State University (MSU) where he holds the Charles Stewart Mott Distinguished Professorship for Sustainable Agriculture. He also serves as the Director of MSU’s Center for Regenerative Agriculture. Rowntree’s research focus is identifying the metrics and management that reflect ecological improvement in grazing land systems. He conducts this work at Lake City AgBio Research Center where he also maintains coordinator responsibilities. Since arriving to MSU in 2009, Rowntree has given over 250 talks throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Saudi Arabia, Africa and New Zealand. He has also worked to co-develop, with the Savory Institute, an Ecological Outcome Verification (EOV) that is now being used on over 2 M acres of grasslands on every continent except Antarctica. He is the project director of a new $19.2 M funded project entitled, “Metrics, Management, and Monitoring: An Investigation of Pasture and Rangeland Soil Health and its Drivers”. His work in beef sustainability has been featured in the movie Sacred Cow, The Washington Post, New York Times, Forbes and many other popular media publications.

Jason will be joining us at the 2024 British Cattle Breeders conference to speak about why “Metrics Matter” Jason said “Metrics matter and based on the approaches we use to assess grazing livestock’s impact on the environment and climate vary greatly. Research from our lab and others indicate that when properly managed, grazing livestock are an important component of a food system. Finally, genetics and breeding management play vitally into further improving performance and mitigation in grazing systems.”

Jason has been responsible for the system change that has taken place at MSU’s Center for Regenerative Agriculture, using holistic and regenerative management principles to improve soil properties, forage production and ecological function whilst employing an 18 – 20 month finishing model.

Thank you to AHDB for supporting Jason Rowntree's attendance at BCBC.  Jason will be participating in other events during the week with AHDB.