New study finds that the industry has reduced emissions while at the same time increased productivity
STE. ROSE DU LAC, Man. — A new study has found that Canada’s beef industry emits 3.6 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gases.
Putting that in context, the country’s cars, trains, buses and planes produce 25 percent of national emissions, according to Environment Canada.
The data might prompt beef producers to ask an obvious question: why should we care about emissions from cattle if Toronto suburbanites are commuting an hour to work?
Betty Green, a cattle producer from Fisher Branch, Man., said the answer is simple. Many people in urban Canada think cows are poisoning the atmosphere and causing climate change. Therefore, people in the cattle industry have to be part of the solution.
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“We’re going to be targeted. The people in Toronto look out (at) the landscape, they look at the cattle and say, ‘you’re the problem,’ ” she told a Manitoba beef and forage week seminar held Jan. 12 in Ste. Rose du Lac.
“They never point back at themselves.”
Scientists with Agriculture Canada in Lethbridge and the University of Manitoba are evaluating the environmental footprint of the beef industry. This month they published the first component of the study in Animal Production Science, comparing greenhouse gas emissions from Canada’s beef sector in 1981 to 2011.
They determined that the industry emitted 15 percent fewer greenhouse gases in 2011, per kilogram of beef, than they did in 1981.
Seventy-five percent of the industry’s carbon footprint comes from cattle methane emissions. The remainder comes from nitrous oxide, mostly manure, and carbon dioxide, which is emitted by machinery used in beef production.
“When we talk about methane, for example, every day an animal is alive he or she is burping out methane,” said Kristen Tapley, a cattle producer from Langruth, Man., who works for the U of M.
“They need to do that to digest fibre in their gut. If we can speed up that process, of getting the calf off the cow and through the feedlot, our carbon footprint goes down.”
The scientists found that Canadian cattle producers have managed to do just that. Productivity is up and greenhouse emissions are down.
Producing the same amount of beef in 2011 required 27 percent fewer slaughter cattle and 24 percent less land.
Getahun Legesse, a U of M scientist who spoke in Ste. Rose, said weaning weight was up 20 percent between 1981 and 2011, steer weight was up 29 percent and heifer weight was up 45 percent.
Legesse said ranchers have selected cows that gain weight more rapidly and improved the quality of forages in their animals’ diets.
The scientists also measured a 15 percent improvement in reproductive efficiency from 1981 to 2011.
“Every day a cow is alive she’s belching out methane,” Tapley said.
“So if she’s alive and didn’t give you a calf, that’s not only costing you feed money, it’s also increasing your carbon footprint.”
Seventy-eight percent of all the methane produced by Canadian cows comes from the cow-calf sector because ruminants generate significantly more methane when they eat forage.
The beef industry could cut emissions by switching entirely to a grain based diet, but that’s not economical.
“We could feed our cows, in a pen, all concentrated diet (of grains) and we would drastically reduce the methane produced as a cow-calf industry,” Tapley said.
“But we would lose all the benefits of grasslands.”
Reducing emissions by 15 percent is a tremendous accomplishment, but the beef industry can make further improvements, Tapley added.
Cow-calf operators will continue to adopt practices that increase rate of gain and production efficiency, which will provide the side benefit of reducing methane emissions.
Tapley said cutting greenhouse gas emissions while increasing productivity is an amazing story, and telling that story is critical.
“Right now one of the most important challenges is how the public is perceiving us,” he said.
“(It) is starting to dictate how we do our jobs.”
Tim McAllister, an Agriculture Canada scientist and lead author of the study, said taking action to cut methane emissions is a better choice than doing nothing.
“I think most producers realize there’s … a change in the mind set of the consumer. Not only are they asking for high quality and safe meat, they’re also asking … how that meat is produced,” he said.
“At the end of the day, the consumer is the boss…. If you’re producing something that nobody wants to buy, for whatever reason, you’re not going to be in business very long.”
Agriculture Canada and the U of M will continue the study until 2018 and report on cattle’s impact on water and the ecological services of pastureland.
The Beef Cattle Research Council, an arm of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, is the main funder of the study.
robert.arnason@producer.com
