If 30 percent of Alberta cattle producers achieved a five percent improvement in their animals’ feed efficiency, it would save about $100 million per year.
Those are figures from Erasmus Okine, beef research scientist and vice-president of research at the University of Lethbridge.
Those numbers are achievable, Okine told an April 20 meeting of the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs. And if they are, it could dramatically reduce the industry’s carbon footprint.
“If you take greenhouse gases, all the livestock in Alberta produce about .1 percent of the greenhouse gases, as a percentage of what happens across Canada, so it is very small,” he said.
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However, they mostly expel methane, a gas more powerful than carbon dioxide in terms of greenhouse effect. A cow can expel 250 to 500 litres of methane per day, primarily through belching.
“It represents a loss of energy for this particular animal,” said Okine.
The answer, or at least part of it, to reducing emissions from cattle is to genetically select for low residual feed intake, which is the difference between what the animal is expected to eat to produce one pound of beef versus what it actually eats to produce that same pound.
Research has shown that some animals simply require less feed to produce the same amount of beef as others.
Given that feed costs make up 25 to 40 percent of the total cost of beef production, an animal that converts feed efficiently is cheaper and thus highly desirable.
Identifying them is key and the impetus behind the Canadian Cattle Genome Project, which aims to sequence the genotype of 100,000 cattle in Canada.
Once their genetic characteristics are known, cattle that are efficient feed converters can be bred as a matter of course, Okine said.
Genetic tests already exist that identify residual feed intake characteristics, and some producers are using them.
Okine also said the livestock industry has made strides in recent decades to become more efficient and environmentally sustainable. For example, in 2007 total beef production required 70 percent of the animals, 81 percent of the feed, 88 percent of the water and 67 percent of land that it did in 1977.
“We can definitely boast that we are able to produce the same amount of beef using less resources.”
Similarly, it took 2.6 lb. of barley to produce one lb. of pork in 2007, compared to 3.8 lb. of barley to produce one lb. of pork in 1972.
