Livestock
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Land use > Agriculture > Livestock
The raising of livestock animals, such as cattle (for beef and leather) or sheep (for mutton and wool), is a factor contributing to land use patterns -- which in turn impacts ecosystems such as forests.
- Livestock directly use and impact land -- either intensively as in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) or extensively in pasture lands -- and also indirectly impact demand for use of land when they are fed grains and other crops, by creating demand for the land used to grow such feed crops.
Livestock are also a factor in greenhouse gas emissions, both directly due to direct emissions (such as methane from the animals' digestive processes), as well as indirectly such as due to changes in land use (e.g. deforestation) resulting from the use of land for raising livestock.
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Cattle
Cattle are raised for meat (beef) and hides (leather).
Clearing of forest to create pastureland for cattle is an important factor in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon and other tropical forest areas.
- From Source to Sink: Reducing Commodity Agriculture's Impacts on Natural Lands - This summary of a larger recent National Wildlife Federation white paper provides an overview of contributions to land use change and climate change by commodity agricultural products such as soy, palm oil, biofuels, and cattle. It also offers a brief overview of supply and demand-side programs that may offer solutions.
- Slaughtering the Amazon - This June 2009 report by Greenpeace found that "The cattle sector in the Brazilian Amazon is the largest driver of deforestation in the world," and was "responsible for 14% of the world’s annual deforestation."[1]
Other animals
- Pigs/swine
- Sheep
- Poultry - chickens, etc.
Events
2010
- 4-6 May 2010, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA: 2010 International BIOMASS Conference & Expo. (Themes: crop residues, energy crops, wood residues, livestock and poultry wastes, MSW)
2009
- 26-27 August 2009, Sao Paulo, Brazil: International Workshop on Solutions to Deforestation and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Caused by Cattle Expansion - Hosted by the National Wildlife Federation in partnership with Amigos da Terra, Allianca da Terra,Imazon, Forest Footprint Disclosure and Greenpeace (Themes: forests, Brazil, deforestation, GHG emissions, REDD, cattle)
Organizations
Some key organizations working on this issue include:
- International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) - a research organization that "conducts inter-disciplinary scientific studies on environmental, economic, technological, and social issues in the context of human dimensions of global change."[2] In 2009, was involved in studying impacts of livestock on land use.
- International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) - ILRI works to "generate knowledge and technologies designed to reduce poverty, hunger, disease and environmental degradation in developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia."[3]
News
- Amazon rainforest will bear cost of biofuel policies in Brazil, 8 February 2010 by Mongabay: "Business-as-usual agricultural expansion to meet biofuel production targets for 2020 will take a heavy toll on Brazil's Amazon rainforest in coming years, undermining the potential emissions savings of transitioning from fossil fuels to biofuels, warns a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The research suggests that intensification of cattle ranching, combined with efforts to promote high-yielding oil crops like oil palm could lessen forecast greenhouse gas emissions from indirect land use in the region."
- The researchers find "that while relatively little forest land will be directly converted for biofuel production, large swathes of rainforest and cerrado will be indirectly impacted through displacement of cattle ranching, presently the dominant form of land use in the Brazilian Amazon."
- The authors "'argue that to avoid the undesired indirect land-use change by biofuels presented here, strategies for cooperation between the cattle ranching and biofuel-growing sectors should be implemented".
- See the PNAS paper, Lapola et al. Indirect land-use changes can overcome carbon savings from biofuels in Brazil.[4]
- USDA Makes a Move on Methane, 12 December 2009 by CQ Politics: "Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a conference call from Copenhagen that his department and the dairy industry have reached an agreement to accelerate efforts to reduce the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2020. The announcement is part of the Obama administration’s continuing campaign to convince farmers they can benefit from an international agreement on climate change."
- "USDA will provide technical assistance and grants to dairy farmers for anaerobic digesters and generators used to compost manure, extract gases and burn them to produce electricity. Manure emits methane, a major greenhouse gas."[5]
- Giants in Cattle Industry Agree to Help Fight Deforestation, 6 October 2009 by The New York Times: "At a conference...organized by Greenpeace, the four cattle companies — Bertin, JBS-Friboi, Marfrig and Minerva — agreed to support Greenpeace’s call for an end to the deforestation."
- "Blairo Maggi, the governor of Mato Grosso, the Brazilian state with the highest rate of deforestation in the Amazon and the country’s largest cattle herd, said Monday that he would support efforts to protect the Amazon and provide high-resolution satellite imagery to help monitor the region."
- "Conspicuously missing from Monday’s announcement was the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil. The government is struggling to reconcile its social and development goals in the Amazon with its desire to be a major player in global climate change talks."
- The Other Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis in Global Land Use, 5 October 2009 by Yale Environment 360: "Our use of land, particularly for agriculture, is absolutely essential to the success of the human race. We depend on agriculture to supply us with food, feed, fiber, and, increasingly, biofuels. Without a highly efficient, productive, and resilient agricultural system, our society would collapse almost overnight."
- "[L]and use is also one of the biggest contributors to global warming....The vast majority comes from deforestation, methane emissions from animals and rice fields, and nitrous oxide emissions from heavily fertilized fields. Yet, for some reason, agriculture has been largely able to avoid the attention of emissions reductions policies."[6]
- In Search of Wildlife-friendly Biofuels: Could Native Prairie Plants Be the Answer, 29 September 2009 by NewsWise/Michigan Technological University: "The unintended consequence of crop-based biofuels may be the loss of wildlife habitat, particularly that of the birds who call this country’s grasslands home, say researchers from Michigan Technological University and The Nature Conservancy."
- "What’s the solution? There are at least two ways to produce bioenergy without destroying wildlife [and habitat], the researchers say. One is to use biomass sources that don’t require additional land, such as agricultural residues and other wastes from municipal, animal, food and forestry industries."[7]
- JBS agrees to protect Amazon forest 28 September 2009 by Northern Colorado Business Report: JBS, the world's largest beef company, "has agreed to make a commitment to Greenpeace to not buy products from protected areas in the Amazon region"...claims it will "abide by practices that 'eliminate deforestation' in the Amazon biome." [8]
- Beef Producers in Amazon Declare Moratorium, 28 August 2009 by VOA News: "Major beef and leather producers in Brazil have agreed not to use cattle raised in recently deforested areas of the Amazon rainforest."
- "The governor of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso has called on meat producers not to buy cattle raised on recently deforested lands in the Amazonian state. Now, two major beef producers in Brazil, Bertin and Marfrig, have announced they are joining the initiative. Shoe makers Nike and Timberland signed on earlier this month."
- "The Brazilian government and independent third-party observers will enforce the moratorium using satellite photographs, aerial fly-overs, and site visits. The meat processors have agreed not to buy cattle from those responsible for newly deforested lands."[9]
- Brazilian Soy Moratorium Extended For One Year, 28 July 2009 by Dow Jones on CNNMoney.com: "The Brazilian Vegetable Oils Industry Association...Tuesday said that the soy moratorium will be extended for one year. 'This is the sort of industry initiative we need to stop the destruction of the Amazon',' said Paulo Adario, environmental group Greenpeace's Amazon Campaign director..."
- "'Soya is no longer a significant force in the destruction of the Amazon rain forest,' said Brazil's Environment Minister, Carlos Minc"..."'However, we cannot say the same about cattle. The soya moratorium is a model for all relevant sectors'"[10]
Reports
- Forest Footprint Disclosure Annual Review (PDF file) - This February 2010 Forest Footprint Disclosure Project report makes available the results of its 2009 company disclosure request. The report "reveals the names of those businesses that have responded to its first call to disclose details of their ‘Forest Footprint’," defined as "the extent to which procurement policies for Forest Risk Commodities (FRCs) such as palm oil, soy, timber, beef, leather and biofuels are linked to deforestation. The Report identifies two high profile British High Street names as ‘Best Performers’ in their sectors – Marks & Spencer (General Retail) and Sainsbury’s (Food and Drug Retail)." [11] (PDF file)
- From Source to Sink - Reducing Commodity Agriculture's Impacts on Natural Lands - December 2009, National Wildlife Federation.
| Livestock | edit | |
| Animals and products: Cattle (beef, leather) | Pigs/Swine (pork) | Sheep (wool) Events: International Workshop on Solutions to Deforestation and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Caused by Cattle Expansion (2009) | ||
| Land use | edit | |
| Dry lands | Land tenure | Land use change (LUC case studies) Indirect land use impacts (Searchinger-Wang debate) | ||
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