The 74th, Annual British Cattle Breeders Conference was held at the end of January with some fantastic speakers. The theme of the conference was – ‘Learn from the Past to Focus on the Future’. The closing presentation from the daytime session was Professor Frank Mitloehner from the University of California discussing Greenhouse Gasses (GHG) and how we are misrepresented in agriculture.

Frank began his presentation stating that we must ensure data used in advertising, on the news and in general discussion is UK based. We regularly see worldwide GHG data used, especially by those trying to convince the general public to move away from meat eating and consuming dairy products. If you look online, you can find figures showing agriculture contributes 10%, 15% and even upwards of 25% to GHG emissions, however, in the UK 9% of emissions are attributed to agriculture and only 4% is from an animal base. The biggest contributor is actually the burning of fossil fuels at over 60%.

So, what does this mean?

We all hear about belching and farting cows and the adverse effects of methane production but that’s only part of the story. Methane is a flow gas, this means that it is produced and destroyed, so, if stock numbers remain stable, no additional methane is produced, as shown below. Although methane is a GHG, if we maintain stock numbers, cattle farming does not add to the level of GHG’s in the atmosphere.

                       Methane Cycle

CO² however is a stock gas, meaning it is produced but not destroyed. Therefore, the biggest risk to climate change is the burning of fossil fuels. CO² is absorbed by pasture, crops, hedges and trees, do cattle actually aid GHG by converting the absorbed CO² to methane by eating pasture and crops?

As can be seen in the series of graphs, if we reduce methane production (fewer more productive animals) agriculture can actually aid global cooling as long as everyone reduces their burning of fossil fuels.

The big question for agriculture in the UK is how do we get these messages out there to counter the rubbish and how do we assess what system is best for aiding the fight against climate change as every region, farm, management system and field is different?

For more information check out Franks YouTube video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOPrF8oyDYw or follow him on social media – @GHGGuru

If you’d like to discuss evaluating the efficiency in your business, contact andydodd@fcgagric.com or your local FCG office.