TY - JOUR

T1 - Improving livestock production efficiencies presents a major opportunity to reduce sectoral greenhouse gas emissions

AU - Hyland, John

AU - Styles, David

AU - Jones, David

AU - Williams, Arwel

N1 - Hybu Cig Cymru and the Knowledge Economic Skills Scholarship program

PY - 2016/9/1

Y1 - 2016/9/1

N2 - The livestock sector is under considerable pressure to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Repeated measurementsof emissions over multiple years will indicate whether the industry is on course to successfullymeet emission reduction targets. Furthermore, repeated analyses of individual farm emissions over differenttimeframes allow for a more representative measure of the carbon footprint (CF) of an agricultural product, asone sampling period can vary substantially from another due to multiple stochastic variables. To explore this, aCF was measured for 15 livestock enterprises that had been assessed three years previously. The aims of the researchwere to: (1) objectively compare CFs between sampling periods; (2) assess the relationship between enterpriseCF and input efficiency; (3) use scenario analyses to determine potential mitigationmeasures. Overall, nosignificant differencewas detected in beef and lamb enterprise CFs between the two sampling periods. However,when all observationswere pooled together, the lowest-emitters were found to have more efficient systemswithhigher productivity with lower maintenance “overheads”, comparedwith their higher-emitting counterparts. Ofsignificance, scenario analyses revealed that the CF of beef and lamb could be reduced by 15% and 30.5%, respectively,if all enterprises replicated the efficiency levels of the least-emitting producers. Encouraging andimplementing efficiency gains therefore offer the livestock industry an achievable method of considerably reducingits contribution to GHG emissions.

AB - The livestock sector is under considerable pressure to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Repeated measurementsof emissions over multiple years will indicate whether the industry is on course to successfullymeet emission reduction targets. Furthermore, repeated analyses of individual farm emissions over differenttimeframes allow for a more representative measure of the carbon footprint (CF) of an agricultural product, asone sampling period can vary substantially from another due to multiple stochastic variables. To explore this, aCF was measured for 15 livestock enterprises that had been assessed three years previously. The aims of the researchwere to: (1) objectively compare CFs between sampling periods; (2) assess the relationship between enterpriseCF and input efficiency; (3) use scenario analyses to determine potential mitigationmeasures. Overall, nosignificant differencewas detected in beef and lamb enterprise CFs between the two sampling periods. However,when all observationswere pooled together, the lowest-emitters were found to have more efficient systemswithhigher productivity with lower maintenance “overheads”, comparedwith their higher-emitting counterparts. Ofsignificance, scenario analyses revealed that the CF of beef and lamb could be reduced by 15% and 30.5%, respectively,if all enterprises replicated the efficiency levels of the least-emitting producers. Encouraging andimplementing efficiency gains therefore offer the livestock industry an achievable method of considerably reducingits contribution to GHG emissions.

U2 - 10.1016/j.agsy.2016.06.006

DO - 10.1016/j.agsy.2016.06.006

M3 - Article

VL - 147

SP - 123

EP - 131

JO - Agricultural Systems

JF - Agricultural Systems

SN - 0308-521X

ER -