Abstract
The greenhouse gas emissions produced by livestock vary widely, depending on species and production practices employed. Scientific advances in husbandry and on-farm practices, including artificial insemination, vaccination, housing, balanced nutrition and mineral supplements have greatly reduced the greenhouse gas emission intensity of beef and dairy in Europe and North America, both compared to the past and to other parts of the world. For example, milk production per cow has more than doubled in the U.S. since the middle of the twentieth century, while the growth rates and meat yields of beef cattle have also increased substantially. As a result of these productivity gains, on average, a kilo of beef or milk produced in Europe, North America, or Oceania now results in less than half the greenhouse gas emissions of a kilo of milk or beef from Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, or South Asia.
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Notes
- 1.
There are many other greenhouse gases, such as chlorofluorocarbons, hydrofluorocarbons, and hydrochlorofluorocarbons, but carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxides account for almost all agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.
- 2.
IPCC (2019).
- 3.
- 4.
Liu et al. (2021).
- 5.
Drewnowski et al. (2015).
- 6.
Johns Hopkins Medicine (2019).
- 7.
McAuliffe et al. (2018).
- 8.
Opio et al. (2013).
- 9.
MacLeod et al. (2013).
- 10.
- 11.
There are several hormone implants that work well in grass-fed cattle; however many grass-finished cattle in the U.S. and western Europe are marketed under labels that prohibit their use.
- 12.
Food wastes and by-products fed to dairy cows range from standard grains such as oats and wheat that do not meet standards for human use to fruit pulp and other food by-products (Walker, 2000).
- 13.
Dairy cows may receive therapeutic antibiotics to treat disease, but their milk cannot be used for human consumption while the animal is being treated and for a period after treatment ends to ensure that the medicines are not present in milk consumed by people. The growth hormone rBST is used in the U.S. (marketed under the brand name Posilac™), but is not approved for use in many other countries, including Canada, the European Union, and New Zealand.
- 14.
There is a lot of variation among dairy farms that practice grazing. The authors know of a farm that uses rBST and also puts the cows on pasture when the weather permits, but that is an unusual case. Many grazing dairies sell their milk into the organic market, which requires that the cows get at least 30% of their nutrition from pasture when the weather permits and prohibits use of rBST. Some organic farms just meet the minimum grazing requirements; others may sell their milk or cheese under a grass-fed (no grain) label for an additional premium; and many fall somewhere between those extremes.
- 15.
The differences in emissions intensity for poultry and pig production are much greater between regions within the industrial or backyard systems than between the two systems MacLeod et al. (2013).
- 16.
Opio et al. (2013).
- 17.
Capper et al. (2009).
- 18.
Capper et al. (2009), Capper and Cady (2020). Because of a combination of the estimate of the global warming potential of methane changing between 2009 and 2020, and other adjustments to the model calculations, there is not a direct comparison between the greenhouse gas emissions intensities of 1944 and 2017.
- 19.
Capper and Cady (2020).
- 20.
Capper and Bauman (2013).
- 21.
- 22.
Lamas et al. (2019).
- 23.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (2021).
- 24.
- 25.
Capper et al. (2008).
- 26.
- 27.
- 28.
Capper (2012).
- 29.
Legesse et al. (2016).
- 30.
Strydom (2016).
- 31.
Johnson et al. (2013).
- 32.
Capper (2012)
- 33.
The antibiotics fed to stimulate growth are ionophores, a class of antibiotics not used for humans. Thus, their use for beef production is not expected to result in antibiotic resistance affecting humans.
- 34.
Beauchemin et al. (2020).
- 35.
- 36.
Capper and Hayes (2012).
- 37.
- 38.
Cady et al. (2013).
- 39.
- 40.
MacLeod et al. (2013).
- 41.
- 42.
Pelletier et al. (2014).
- 43.
MacLeod et al. (2013).
- 44.
See Appendix C (MacLeod et al., 2013)
- 45.
Garnett et al. (2017).
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Mayerfeld, D., Capper, J.L. (2023). The Benefits of Modern Efficiency. In: Mayerfeld, D. (eds) Our Carbon Hoofprint. Food and Health. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09023-3_4
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