The international beef sector is responding positively to the challenge of climate change, according to Livestock and Meat Commission (LMC) chief executive, Ian Stevenson.
And the conclusions of a recent report, prepared by the economics research team at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, support this assertion, he said.
The research was jointly commissioned by the Dairy Working Group (DWG) and the European Roundtable for Beef Sustainability (ERBS) groupings within the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Platform.
Stevenson is an ERBS board member.
The SAI Platform is a not-for-profit organisation working to support transformation of the global food and drink industry to source and produce more sustainably.
With over 150 members, from companies and organisations in the global food and drink value chain, SAI Platform is at the forefront in pioneering solutions to common challenges and promoting sustainable agriculture in a pre-competitive environment.
SAI Platform’s DWG represents 30% of the global milk volume. It is a pre-competitive platform in which dairy buyers and processors work together to develop sector transformational initiatives.
Climate change mitigation
A key climate-change priority for the group is that of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the dairy industry.
ERBS is a multi-stakeholder platform, hosted by SAI Platform, focussed on European beef sustainability from farm to fork.
ERBS unites and coordinates sustainability programmes around a common agenda to deliver positive impact within the beef value chain.
One of the key outcome areas the ERBS is focussed on is the reduction of GHG emissions as part of improving the environmental footprint of farming systems.
Stevenson commented:
“The team at Wageningen reviewed all the current scientific literature, which references carbon footprint mitigations options that can impact positively on dairy and livestock production.
“They also surveyed the views of SAI Platform members on this critically important matter. Significantly, the majority of businesses and organisations actively contributed to the project.”
According to the LMC chief executive, 28 mitigation measures were referenced in the final Wageningen report, which is available on the SAI Platform website.
He further explained:
“Of these mitigation measures currently in use, the top five are worthy of note. It is significant that the measures deemed to be the most effective at the present time all serve to improve the production efficiency at farm levels.
“Of equal significance, is the fact that all of these measures can and are being adopted in the same meaningful way on farms here in Northern Ireland.”
He continued:
“Coming in at number one is the use of improved animal-breeding techniques to improve livestock-productivity levels, for example, through higher milk yields and number of calves per cow per year.
“The parallels that can be drawn for Northern Ireland in adopting this approach are obvious.
“The second-ranked mitigation measure is that of improving animal-efficiency levels. Factors coming into focus here include increases in food-conversion rates and reductions in the time required to take animals through from birth to final slaughter.”
The third-ranked mitigation measure identified by the Wageningen team is that of improving diet composition and ensuring that animals have access to the quality and consistency of feed that they need at all times.
And the fourth-best mitigation measure involves improving animal-health levels.
This involves the greater use of vaccines and introducing effective management systems that maximise all animal-health.
“Improving forage quality comes in at number five on the list of mitigation measures. This includes a commitment to earlier harvesting and the use of improved varieties,” he said.
“And, again, the relevance of this approach for farmers in Northern Ireland is immediately obvious.”
The report also takes an in-depth look at how improved manure management can be used to drive both efficiency and carbon-footprint mitigation on livestock farms.
“One of the most important themes within the report is its confirmation that many of these mitigation measures are being actively applied on livestock farms around the world,” Stevenson said.
“The link between improved efficiency and reduced emission levels is obvious.”
He added:
“The Wageningen report reflects the impact of mitigation interventions that are available now.
“As the livestock industry looks to the future, the impact of future technologies that aren’t in widespread use currently or, indeed those that we do not know about yet, will have to be factored-in down the line.”