Frequently Asked Questions about Raising the Steaks
Raising the Steaks: Global Warming and Pasture-Raised Beef Production in the U.S.
- What is new about this report?
- Does this report contradict other reports that say livestock is a much bigger contributor to global warming?
- I have heard that beef contributes more global warming emissions pound-for-pound than other foods. Is that true, and if so, shouldn’t government policies focus on discouraging beef consumption rather than reducing emissions from beef production?
- Why do beef producers use CAFOs?
- Could beef cattle be raised entirely in feedlots?
- Why does there seem to be conflicting research about the global warming contribution of pasture versus CAFOs? Can’t these systems be compared and a “winner" declared?
- Don’t all plants capture CO2 from the air and store carbon in the soil? Why are pasture plants better at this than corn or other crops?
- Do climate-friendly pasture beef production practices have other benefits?
- What can the federal government do to make beef production more climate-friendly?
1) What is new about this report?
Raising the Steaks is the first report to comprehensively evaluate and attempt to quantify the prospects for changes in management practices to reduce the global warming contribution of pasture-based beef production in the Unites States. Pastures can vary widely in their climate impact, and our analysis suggests that there is considerable potential to employ sophisticated, yet currently available, best management practices and thereby significantly reduce the climate impact of many U.S. pastures. Currently available practices can reduce methane emissions—a heat-trapping gas about 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide—by at least 15 to 30 percent.
Innovative, smart pasture operations can further mitigate climate impacts by adopting production practices that store, or sequester, carbon from the atmosphere in pasture soils. Estimates vary widely, but up to 2 percent of total U.S. climate emissions—equivalent to the carbon dioxide emitted from about 21 million cars—may be eliminated through adopting practices that reduce methane and nitrous oxide and increase carbon sequestration in pasture soils. This report offers policy makers and beef producers recommendations for steps that can be taken today, and suggests areas of research that should be expanded.
2) Does this report contradict other reports that say livestock is a much bigger contributor to global warming?
No. In a landmark 2006 report, Livestock’s Long Shadow, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that food animals (including, but not limited to beef cattle) produce about 18 percent of the world’s heat-trapping emissions. Because the United States produces a disproportionate share of industrial global warming emissions, our entire agriculture sector produces a smaller share, about 6 percent, of total U.S. heat-trapping emissions, from the two main agricultural global warming gases. And we calculate, mainly using data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, that beef production in the United States contributes roughly 2.2 percent of total U.S. climate change emissions.
While this may seem like a small percentage, the amount of emissions is not insignificant. In fact, U.S. beef’s contribution to climate change is roughly the equivalent of the annual emissions of 24 million cars or light trucks, or 33 average-size coal-fired power plants.
3) I have heard that beef contributes more global warming emissions pound-for-pound than other foods. Is that true, and if so, shouldn’t government policies focus on discouraging beef consumption rather than reducing emissions from beef production?
Most analyses conclude that beef production has a much greater impact on climate and other aspects of the environment, per pound of product, than most other foods. Reducing consumption (and therefore production of beef by whatever methods) would be a direct way to achieve dramatic reductions in global warming emissions, and policymakers might want to consider encouraging consumers to substitute poultry, which has considerably less impact, or to reduce total meat consumption.
While reduced consumption would be helpful, eliminating beef consumption entirely—even if it were achievable—is probably not desirable. Beef cattle have the ability to turn grass, which is inedible to humans, into high-quality protein that many people want to eat. And cattle can be an important component of a diversified agriculture—one that includes plants and animals in a mutually beneficial system in which the plants nourish the livestock and manure in turn fertilizes the crops. Furthermore, demand for beef is up in developing countries that are becoming wealthier. There is therefore a need to make production of beef more climate-friendly.
4) Why do beef producers use CAFOs?
The CAFO (confined animal feeding operation) system arose from a surplus of corn and other grains, and has been maintained in part through public policies that have subsidized these crops, historically making grain a relatively cheap animal feed. Cattle convert the grain-based diets in CAFOs into meat more efficiently than is typically the case for pasture grasses and other forages, and this diet produces a high-fat product that consumers have become accustomed to. In recent decades, tax-payer subsidized research has focused on improving the efficiency of CAFO production, further entrenching this system at the expense of alternatives.
However, as Raising the Steaks points out, a number of recent published experiments show that high-quality pasture feeds can approach or match the efficiency of corn-based feed. The research and practices that would produce such quality pasture feeds are the very ones our report recommends.
5) Could beef cattle be raised entirely in feedlots?
No. Grain-based diets are not natural or healthy for cattle. They cannot live on these diets for more than the several months required to fatten, or “finish” them in CAFOs before slaughter, and even during that period they are at risk of liver abscesses that require regular doses of antibiotics to fend off.
All cattle need to eat forages for a substantial part of their lives—even if they end up in CAFOs. The large majority of beef cattle are therefore raised on pasture or range (unimproved grassland) for months regardless of how they are finished. Thus, even CAFO systems could benefit from pasture practices that improve their climate and broader environmental footprint.
6) Why does there seem to be conflicting research about the global warming contribution of pasture versus CAFOs? Can’t these systems be compared and a “winner" declared?
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Because they tend to grow more quickly on grain, CAFO cattle generally produce methane and manure over a shorter lifespan than cattle on forage, which can result in lower climate emissions per pound of meat (though there are other aspects of pasture that may reduce or eliminate that advantage). But the nutritional quality of forages varies a lot, because pasture practices are not nearly as standardized as are CAFOs. Some researchers calculating climate impact estimates through modeling have used forage efficiency values that are near the low end of a wide range. A number of recent published experiments show that, at the other end, high-quality forages can approach or match the efficiency of corn-based feed. Use of these higher values for forage efficiency in climate models would substantially reduce the disparity between CAFO and pasture systems.
Because there is such variation in pasture practices, it is difficult to accurately compare pasture and CAFOs. In fact, there is no a single answer. For example, a recent study that used low nutritional values for forage favored CAFOs when it was assumed that pastures do not sequester additional carbon. But when pasture carbon sequestration (see FAQ 7) values that are reasonable for many locations were used, pastures came out ahead.
7) Don’t all plants capture CO2 from the air and store carbon in the soil? Why are pasture plants better at this than corn or other crops?
All plants capture carbon dioxide from the air, and generally can sequester it in the soil, but some plants and crop production practices are better than others. Most pastures are composed largely of perennials—plants that live more than two years, and sometimes much longer. Because these plants grow much of the year and maintain living roots even in winter, they protect the soil surface from erosion and carbon loss year-round. By contrast, grain crops used to feed cattle in CAFOs are only growing part of the year, often leaving the soil more exposed during the winter months; soil used to grow annual grains also may be tilled, or broken up, before planting, disturbing the soil and allowing carbon to escape. Furthermore, perennial plants tend to have deeper and more extensive root systems than annual crops, enabling their roots to store more carbon, more deeply in the soil, compared with typical grain crops. Perennial pasture therefore has a substantial carbon sequestration advantage over annual grain crops—even when grain farmers adopt practices (such as reduced tillage) that may improve carbon sequestration.
After several decades, well-managed pastures will sequester as much carbon as their soil can hold, capping this benefit, but in the meantime there is much potential for many perennial pastures to contribute to atmospheric carbon reduction.
8) Do climate-friendly pasture beef production practices have other benefits?
Practices that reduce the climate impact of pasture beef production typically also reduce other types of pollution, such as water pollution that results when excess nitrogen or phosphorus in manure and fertilizer runs off into streams or leaches into underground drinking water supplies. Nitrogen is considered by many scientists to be among the biggest sources of pollution worldwide. Pasture production also reduces ammonia air pollution from beef operations. This synergy of environmental benefits is another reason to adopt best management practices discussed in Raising the Steaks.
Pasture-raised beef also has health benefits compared with conventional beef that mostly comes from CAFO systems. A 2006 UCS report, Greener Pastures, found that meat from grass-fed cattle contains higher levels of beneficial fats that may reduce heart disease and strengthen the immune system than conventionally produced beef. The study also found that grass-fed beef is often leaner.
Finally, raising livestock on pastures avoids the crowding and illnesses (including liver abscesses) that plague livestock in CAFOs, reducing or eliminating the need for antibiotics that contributes to the public health crisis of antibiotic resistance.
9) What can the federal government do to make beef production more climate-friendly?
The federal government has an important role to play in helping farmers to improve pasture practices. Research funding is needed at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to improve the nutritional quality (forage feed efficiency), productivity, hardiness, efficient nitrogen use, and other growth characteristics of pasture and harvested forage crops. In addition to research, funding is needed for USDA farmer incentive programs, such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Conservation Stewardship Program, that can encourage farmers to adopt best management practices on their pastures. The federal farm bill, due to be reauthorized in 2012, offers an opportunity for Congress and the administration to invest in these programs. The reduction in climate impact and other types of pollution will return this investment many times over, because the impacts of climate change and pollution have social and economic costs.
