SUSTAINABILITY AND STEWARDSHIP

SUSTAINABILITY & STEWARDSHIP

Sustainable Cattle Production

By Jason E. Sawyer, Associate Professor and Research Scientist, King Ranch® Institute for Ranch Management Myriah D. Johnson, Senior Director, Beef Sustainability Research, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association

Headlines, soundbites and social media posts questioning the sustainability of beef production can be overwhelming. While the tone of the public conversation about beef sustainability can often seem negative, there are many positives we need to make sure are not left out of the conversation.

Sustainable food production is a legitimate concern as the global population continues to increase. On a global scale, producing enough food in a manner that conserves resources so the capacity of future generations remains intact to produce food and fiber, is a meaningful objective. Fundamentally, that is the foundation of discussions about sustainability. Beef offers some important advantages as a nutrient rich food source for humans. A foundational sustainability value proposition of beef within the food system is ‘upcycling’ – the transformation of resources that cannot be directly used by humans into high value protein, micronutrients and a host of components used in other important food and non-food products. For example, beef cattle are capable of utilizing forages grown on sites unsuitable for efficient food crop production. These grazing systems are important examples of renewable resource use, and grazing can actually enhance these resources for other multiple uses while making substantial contributions to the food supply. Cattle also utilize co-products from other food processing systems, such as distillers grain, cottonseed and beet pulp, which themselves are renewable resources. Cattle also upgrade the protein value of feed grains that are produced in excess of needs for direct human consumption by converting them to a protein source that more closely matches the human protein requirements.1 Because beef production is based on use of renewable resources, it is fundamentally (or potentially) an indefinitely sustainable system.

Original concerns about sustainable food production involve ensuring that resource use does not compromise future productivity. It is also logical to consider other impacts that could compromise not only future beef production, but other important provisioning functions. Current characterization of sustainability of systems incorporates these broad effects into three pillar areas that are collectively used to assess sustainable practices: environmental, economic and social impacts of systems are all important considerations, and all can be impacted by any food production system. These factors are interrelated, and trade-offs may exist among them, which increases the complexity of evaluating or defining sustainability. A focus on the potential negative impacts in one area may distort or hide the actual positive contributions of beef systems in the same or other areas, and it is essential that the positives be defined as well to avoid ‘throwing the baby out with the bath water’. Economic sustainability is an important feature of any system. Factors such as producer profitability, financial benchmarking, generational transfer, economic impact through tax contributions, donations by producers, job creation and overall contributions to economic growth are all important descriptors of economic dimensions of sustainability. It is important for both producers and consumers to recognize that in food production systems, strategies that increase profitability of producers often are based on increases in efficiency of resource use per unit of output, which may indicate improvements in conservation of resources and reduced environmental impact. As profitability increases, more production is encouraged, resulting in lower prices for consumers and better access to food for all. Economic viability of production is therefore a positive indicator for producers and consumers alike, and often results in positive impacts in environmental and social dimensions of sustainability as well. To further define the extent and nature of these related impacts, checkoff-funded research will evaluate how the presence of beef cattle production in rural areas helps to provide community stability through their contribution to local economies and employment, reduce poverty and improve quality of life in rural communities. Additional ongoing research will define and highlight the contribution of U.S. beef production and processing to the U.S. economy through gross sales, wages, and total economic value added (employee compensation, proprietary income, returns to capital and taxes).

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It is important for both producers and consumers to recognize that in food production systems, strategies that increase profitability of producers often are based on increases in efficiency of resource use per unit of output, which may indicate improvements in conservation of resources and reduced environmental impact. As profitability increases, more production is encouraged, resulting in lower prices for consumers and better access to food for all.

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While economic contributions are important dimensions of sustainability, they are also related to other impacts on people and communities. Social dimensions of sustainable production systems are often described by factors such as community participation and resilience, providing safe and decent work environments, cultural preservation, recreational benefits, animal health and well-being, and consumer health and safety. The 2017 Cattlemen’s Stewardship Review found that beef cattle farmers and ranchers are highly engaged citizens compared to the general population, with 97 percent voting, 39 percent volunteering with civic organizations, and approximately 50 percent of those surveyed have run for an elected office.2 Current research is working to apply social sustainability benchmarking methodologies to the beef industry as well as assessing the level of community security in areas where beef cattle production exists. Just as economic viability has ramifications for social dimensions of sustainability, societal concerns about impacts of current practices on moral and ethical issues such as animal welfare and social equity extend to current activity impacts on resource stewardship and environmental quality. Many foundational concepts of sustainability originated from concerns that environmental degradation or resource depletion would impair the ability of future generations to produce enough A key to better descriptors of sustainability is better definition of the relationships among all these factors, and how beef production systems and management strategies can make simultaneous contributions in multiple dimensions. For example, targeted grazing to reduce fire risk can not only help to protect ecosystems and wildlife populations (environmental benefit), but also enhance public safety, preserve community infrastructure (social benefits), and save taxpayer dollars and improve productivity (economic benefits), while at the same time providing a nutrient rich source of highquality protein, the primary purpose of food producing systems.

food to sustain the global population. While the economic, social and environmental pillars used to frame sustainability discussions are each relevant and interrelated, the historic originating view of sustainability often leads to focus on the environmental dimension. Emphasis on specific environmental indicators has varied over time, and resource consumption (real or perceived) is often included in environmental considerations. Current discussions of beef sustainability seem to be centered around climate impacts, such as greenhouse gas emissions (especially methane emissions from ruminants), greenhouse gas mitigation (for example, through carbon sequestration in grazing lands), and measures of resource intensity (the carbon, water, or land-use footprint of beef). Because the underlying concerns (e.g., climate impacts) are extraordinarily complex, and the relationship between beef production and these outcomes is not clearly understood, reports often seem critical or negative. For example, methane is in fact a greenhouse gas. Beef cattle, as a result of their capacity to convert human inedible fibrous materials into high-quality protein, do in fact produce methane in varying amounts. However, the often-made assumption that ‘therefore, beef productions systems cause climate change’ does not necessarily follow. Currently, even the magnitude of impact to assign to methane emissions relative to carbon dioxide is being discussed, with recent scientific publications suggesting that widely adopted direct emissions metrics such as the 100-year Global Warming Potential (GWP100) may not provide accurate predictions of temperature effects at time points other than 100 years from the time of emission. Importantly, because methane behaves differently in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, measuring gross emissions does not account for its accumulation – or reduction – in the atmosphere. New metrics that are based instead on changes in emission rates, like GWP*, more closely align with potential changes in atmospheric concentration and therefore produce better predictions of temperature effects. Comparing the use of these measures of methane for the U.S. beef cattle population, GWP* indicates substantially less impact from methane emissions than GWP100 over the last decade. This is a result of the reduction in U.S. cattle populations (a change in the rate of methane emissions) as production efficiency (beef produced per cow per year) has increased. The GWP* values more closely reflect the expected contributions of cattle to atmospheric methane concentrations, which are ultimately responsible for its effects on atmospheric warming. Using cattle population dynamics since 1865 to estimate annual total methane emissions, and accounting for the atmospheric lifetime of methane, U.S. beef cattle have likely added only 10 parts per billion of methane to the atmosphere. This represents less than 1 percent of the measured total atmospheric change in methane over the same time period; a change of this small size is within the range of error of the estimate of total change. The use of better metrics, and the development of context for the relative contribution of beef production to GHG loads in the atmosphere, should allow for a clearer understanding (and a less negative perception) of the role of beef production on carbon transactions.

There are also many areas where the U.S. beef cattle industry has positive impacts on measures of environmental sustainability, such as improving carbon sequestration on grazing lands, improving plant and animal biodiversity in ecosystems, enhancing the quality and quantity of freshwater yield, the protection of wildlife migration corridors, resistance to invasive plant species, and management of fuel loads to reduce catastrophic wildfires. Current research efforts are designed to measure and describe these benefits, and to gain understanding of what factors influence their delivery so that the aggregate environmental impact – positives and negatives – can be better understood and more effectively managed. An example of aggregating impact is including carbon uptake from grazing lands with greenhouse gas emissions metrics to get a more comprehensive estimate of the ‘net’ carbon footprint of beef. While considering ‘internal removals’ is an accepted method of assessing ‘footprints’ according to international standards, it is difficult to measure and so is often not included in general or national assessments. However, uptake of relatively small amounts of C per acre (50 kg C per acre), when included in a net emissions framework using GWP*, could result in GHG-neutral U.S. beef over the past 35 years. This initial modeling estimate needs to be further evaluated, but it is consistent with a recent global assessment indicating that North American grazing lands are a net sink for carbon, after accounting for emissions from grazing livestock.3 It is important to continue to refine measurement and assessment of the environmental impact of beef to gain a more balanced perspective on its contributions and opportunities for improvement in environmental sustainability. A key to better descriptors of sustainability is better definition of the relationships among all these factors, and how beef production systems and management strategies can make simultaneous contributions in multiple dimensions. For example, targeted grazing to reduce fire risk can not only help to protect ecosystems and wildlife populations (environmental benefit), but also enhance public safety, preserve community infrastructure (social benefits), and save taxpayer dollars and improve productivity (economic benefits), while at the same time providing a nutrient rich source of high-quality protein, the primary purpose of food producing systems. A truly sustainable system is one that can deliver these multiple benefits in ways that do not deplete resources or impair the ability to keep producing the food necessary to satisfy global needs far into the future.

1 Baber, J.R., J.E. Sawyer, and T.A. Wickersham. 2018. “Estimation of human-edible protein conversion efficiency, net protein contribution, and enteric methane production from beef production in the United States.” Translational Animal Science. 2(4):439-450. https://doi. org/10.1093/tas/txy086

2 National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. 2017. “2017 Cattlemen’s stewardship review.” Accessed on March 27, 2021 at https://www. beefitswhatsfordinner.com/Media/BIWFD/Docs/ beef-csr-report-2017-final.pdf.

3 Chang, J. et al. 2021. “Climate warming from managed grasslands cancels the cooling effect of carbon sinks in sparsely grazed and natural grasslands.” Nature Communications. (2021)12:118. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-02020406-7 These terms are often used in conversations about sustainability in beef production. Here’s what they mean and how you’re already contributing to the process on your farm or ranch.

Upcycling: the transformation of resources that cannot be directly used by humans into high value protein, micronutrients and a host of components used in other important food and non-food products. For example, beef cattle are capable of utilizing forages grown on sites unsuitable for efficient food crop production.

Carbon Sequestration: the process of capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide. For example, farmers and ranchers that manage pastures contribute to this process as carbon dioxide is taken from the air and is stored as carbohydrates in plants. The plants are then consumed by cattle and other ruminant animals. Some of this carbon enters the soil through decomposing plant matter and root exudates, contributing to long-term carbon storage (sequestration) on grazing lands.