Beef | TableDebates

Photo: 20130712-AMS-LSC-0396, US Department of Agriculture, Flickr, Public Domain Mark 1.0

A model for ‘sustainable’ US beef production

This study by researchers in the US used a theoretical approach to work out how much beef could be produced in the US if the cows were raised solely on pasturelands and by-products, and what the environmental and nutritional ramifications of repurposing the freed up cropland would be.

Photo: Noel Portugal, Flickr, Creative Commons License 2.0

Greedy or needy? Land use and climate impacts of food in 2050 under different livestock futures

This new paper by FCRN member Elin Röös , the FCRN’s Tara Garnett and colleagues explores the following questions: What would be the implications, for land use and greenhouse gas emissions, if our global population moved away from eating beef and other ruminant meats and switched mostly to chicken? What if we all went vegan? What if all our meat demand were met by artificial meat? Or what if, in an attempt to avoid ‘feed-food’ competition, we limited our consumption of animal products to what we could obtain by rearing animals on grasslands and feeding them byproducts and food waste?

Grasslands on rolling hills. Photo by Luis Olmos via Unsplash.

Commentary by the Sustainable Food Trust on Grazed and Confused report

This is the initial response by the Sustainable Food Trust to the Grazed and Confused report published by the Food Climate Research Network.

Beef cattle in a feed lot. Photo by Annie Spratt via Unsplash.

Blog-post by Tara Garnett: Why eating grass-fed beef isn’t going to help fight climate change

In this piece, Dr. Tara Garnett introduces her full report, Grazed and Confused, on the controversy around beef consumption.Dr Tara Garnett is coordinator and lead researcher at the FCRN. It originally appeared in The Conversation on the 3rd October and is reposted here with permisssion. Tara’s work centres on the interactions among food, climate, health and broader sustainability issues and she has a particular interest in livestock as a sector where many of these converge. She is also interested in how knowledge is communicated to and interpreted by policy makers, civil society organisations and industry, and in the values that these different stakeholders bring to food problems and possible solutions.

Grazed and Confused

Ruminating on cattle, grazing systems, methane, nitrous oxide, the soil carbon sequestration question – and what it all means for greenhouse gas emissions.

Report by the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) on meat consumption and colorectal cancer

The WCRF has released a report on colorectal cancer as part of its Continuous Update Project (CUP) – an ongoing programme to analyse global research on how diet, nutrition, physical activity and weight affect cancer risk and survival. The report confirms that, along with other risk factors, consuming red and processed meat increase the risk of colorectal cancer.

Photo: Mr Beans, Kenneth Leung, Flickr, Creative Commons License Attribution 2.0 Generic

Substituting beans for beef can contribute towards US climate change targets

This study by FCRN member Helen Harwatt and colleagues seeks to determine whether simple dietary changes can make a meaningful contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation efforts, by considering a very simple example of US consumers substituting beans for beef in their diets. The study uses available life cycle assessment (LCA; see Chapter 2 of foodsource) data to predict the change in GHG emissions that would be associated with a substitution of beans for beef (substitution on the basis of calories, and on the basis of protein content). They place these projected changes in the context of US 2020 GHG reduction targets.

Record profits for Cargill based on increasing meat demand

The world’s largest agricultural commodities supplier, Cargill, obtained its highest profit in six years based on an increasing demand for meat. Animal nutrition and protein were the largest contributor to quarterly earnings for the company.

Less beef, less carbon: Americans shrink their diet-related carbon footprint

This report, by the US based NRDC (The Natural Resources Defense Council) finds that the per capita diet related carbon footprint of the average US citizen decreased by 10% between 2005 and 2014, driven by a 19% decrease in beef consumption.