Feeding cereals to ruminants is a good way of keeping the machinery, fertiliser, chemical and feed merchants in business, as well as people like the plant breeders. All of whom require fossil fuels for their business model and most of them help create the conditions for loss of soil organic matter and soil erosion. Compare that to your zero input pp situation which takes carbon and nitrogen out of the air and you start to see that different systems have different environmental impacts.
I think he goes out of his way to avoid criticism of farmers, apart from himself. I'm fairly clear on how "his" transition would be achieved and what benefits it would bring. It does require a certain level of flexible thinking and adaptability.
Criticising farmers, criticising systems, it's the same thing. Which is where my fundamental problem with James et al lies. We have a shed full of cattle, eating a home grown diet and lying on home grown straw, to end up in the butchery counters 100 yards away. Any member of the public, or any decision making politician, reading all these bucolic books and articles about grass fed beef, would look at our cattle and decide they are destroying the planet. News flash: They aren't.
If James is going to show his hard earned and well deserved followers the way forward, then he needs to start talking about - and suggesting solutions for - where the real environmental damage is being caused.