Livestock | TableDebates

Livestock-related greenhouse gas emissions: impacts and options for policy-makers

Committee on Climate Change - Second progress report

Agricultural Systems Paper on beef

Pelletier N, Pirog R, Rasmussen R (2010). "Comparative life cycle environmental impacts of three beef production strategies in the Upper Midwestern United States", Agricultural Systems 103 (2010) 380–389 This paper compares three US beef rearing systems. Cattle are finished either in: feedlot systems (having received hormone implants); backgrounding systems (also with hormone implants); or on pasture (no implants).

Livestock feed and food security. Source: UNFPA

Livestock, feed and food security

This briefing paper explores some of the arguments surrounding the relationship between what we feed and how we rear farm animals, and the availability and accessibility of food for human consumption.

Image of communal cattle in China by ILRI via Flickr

Intensive versus extensive livestock systems and greenhouse gas emissions

The purpose of this briefing paper is to explore the different ways in which one might view the contributions that livestock in intensive and extensive systems make to greenhouse gas emissions.

livestock

Livestock-related greenhouse gas emissions: impacts and options for policy-makers

This paper reviews the life cycle analysis (LCA) approach to quantifying these emissions and argues that, given the dynamic complexity of our food system, it offers a limited understanding of livestock’s GHG impacts.

World Watch Institute report

In November 2009 the World Watch Institute released a report arguing that the FAO's estimate of livestock's total contribution to global GHG emissions (18%) is a serious underestimate and that the true footprint of livestock production is around 51% higher.

Public health benefits

Meat and dairy production & consumption: Exploring the livestock sector's contribution to the UK's greenhouse gas emissions

This paper explores the contribution that our consumption of livestock products in the UK makes to greenhouse gases, the complexities associated with attempts at quantifying these impacts, the options for mitigation and the environmental and welfare challenges these options may present.

livestock

Animal feed, livestock and greenhouse gas emissions: What are the issues?

This paper, presented at the Society of Animal Feed Technologists in January 2007, examines the contribution that livestock make to greenhouse gas emissions, and the options for emissions reduction, focusing mainly on emissions from beef and dairy systems.