Animals' Payback

Grasses need grazing animals.

Most perennial grasses are built with their growth points at ground level but below grazing height. The grass must be mowed (grazed) in order to remove dead and living material for sunlight to strike the growing points below.

When the animal removes the photosynthesizing surface area the plant sheds some root mas which becomes labile (short lived) carbon in the soil and that's a good thing. Meanwhile the animal is out-gassing CO2 on the grass and that gas is taken up by the plant as raw material for further photosynthesis. Ruminants also belch methane which is utilized by methanotrophs (bacteria that oxidize methane) in the soil.

As the grazing animal moves along it's excrement feeds the soil with nitrogen, phosphorus, and replenishes soil microfauna; The gut of a ruminant is very much like a "bioreactor" - a controlled environment for the rapid amplification of microorganisms.

Divorcing ruminants from the soil is a terrible idea. The grasses and the ruminant co-evolved over millions of years. Subtracting one side of that highly balanced and conserved equation doesn't even make sense.