I actually grew up up in the country in a state that is almost entirely farmland. Specifically, cows and sheep mow grass down. Not trees, not bushes, not thickets, not a lot of other plants. They’re grazers, not foragers like goats. How homogeneous you keep your pastures affects how much they get mowed down. I grew up where pastures had lots of trees, brambles, and ditches, so despite living in a state that was historically largely prairie, there were still plenty of plants the cows didn’t touch.
Even if they *did* eat all the grass, though, that would still be a lot damn better than crops! Non-domesticated plants have much more extensive roots systems, which means they help anchor the soil in place, and help water penetrate further. This means a bad flood won’t result in landslides, or otherwise tons of topsoil getting washed away.
The fact that you wouldn’t be using pesticides is no small matter, either. That alone is going to save not only countless native species, but help the health of the people who live there, too. You really don’t want to be drinking water that pesticides and fertilizers have gotten into.
Maintaining, harvesting, and processing a crop also takes a lot of work. (To say nothing of plants that have to be pollinated by hand…) Animals largely take care of themselves, and most of the processing is done by the consumer–so, no slave labor!
Because you don’t need a special environment/growing season to keep most domestic animals, unlike plants, this also means we don’t need to destroy the land of other countries and keep making banana republics.
I cannot emphasize the importance of trees enough. Even if the only other thing you have growing in that pasture is mowed-down grass, you’re fine if you’ve got trees, because if you get enough of them together, trees control the damn weather. As in, the water they absorb from the soil (which is, again, penetrating the soil much deeper because of all the grass roots!) gets evaporated into the atmosphere and becomes clouds, keeping the air nice and cool and moist so everything doesn’t turn to desert. Fresh air is also a bonus.
And remember what we were saying about pollinators? The adult pollinator may drink the nectar from one plant, but it’s usually a totally different plant that it’s going to be eating and living on for the majority of its lifespan as a larva. Many caterpillars live on trees. For bees and wasps, trees are essential places to build their nests. Beetles are overlooked, but also essential pollinators, and their grubs often live in the soil and feed off roots. Many gnats, midges, and even regular flies are also pollinators, so even maggots growing in cow pies will grow into crucial pollinators!!!
Let’s not forget the vertebrates, either! Most birds need trees to nest in, obviously. Many mammals and ground birds want trees and burrows in pasture to live in. Even small streams and ponds will form places for turtles, amphibians, ducks, geese, and catfish (they can crawl on land to find new bodies of water, which is why they’re all over the Midwest)! And we can’t forget the aquatic insects, either! And, even if you have absolutely nothing *but* mowed grass in the pasture, that’s still providing a place for tons of insects, which are foundational to the food chain. Grasshoppers, crickets, bugs, and beetles can all live on just grass, and are just big, fat packets of protein!
There’s also the fact that even having *one* pasture like this creates a reliable base for these species, and having a safehaven is a huge step in helping them reestablish in other places. Even if they lose one habitat, they have another to fall back on.
So, yeah. Pastures are pretty damn good places for native wildlife to get their bearings.
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