Exploring Rotational Grazing and Crossbreeding as Options for Beef Production to Reduce GHG Emissions and Feed-Food Competition through Farm-Level Bio-Economic Modeling

In the context of a growing population, beef production is expected to reduce its consumption of human-edible food and its contribution to global warming. We hypothesize that implementing the innovations of fast rotational grazing and redesigning existing production systems using crossbreeding and s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Animals (Basel) 2023-03, Vol.13 (6), p.1020
Main Authors: Mertens, Alexandre, Kokemohr, Lennart, Braun, Emilie, Legein, Louise, Mosnier, Claire, Pirlo, Giacomo, Veysset, Patrick, Hennart, Sylvain, Mathot, Michaël, Stilmant, Didier
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Advisors
Agricultural production
Agriculture
Air pollution
Air quality management
Analysis
Beef
Beef industry
Byproducts
Calves
Case studies
Cattle
Cereals
Climate change
climate change mitigation
Competition
Corn
Costs (Law)
Cross-breeding
crossbreeding
Dairy cattle
Dairy farming
Dairy farms
Economic models
Emissions
Emissions control
Farmers
fast rotational grazing
feed-food competition
Feeds
Focus groups
Food
Food availability
Food consumption
Food quality
Global warming
Global warming potential
Grasslands
Grazing
Greenhouse effect
Greenhouse gases
Impact analysis
Innovations
Life Sciences
Mathematical programming
Meat production
Milk
Milk production
Pasture
Pasture management
Proteins
Redesign
Rotational grazing
Sensitivity analysis
Sexing
Sustainability
Workload
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Summary:In the context of a growing population, beef production is expected to reduce its consumption of human-edible food and its contribution to global warming. We hypothesize that implementing the innovations of fast rotational grazing and redesigning existing production systems using crossbreeding and sexing may reduce these impacts. In this research, the bio-economic model FarmDyn is used to assess the impact of such innovations on farm profit, workload, global warming potential, and feed-food competition. The innovations are tested in a Belgian system composed of a Belgian Blue breeder and a fattener farm, another system where calves raised in a French suckler cow farm are fattened in a farm in Italy, and third, a German dairy farm that fattens its male calves. The practice of fast rotational grazing with a herd of dairy-to-beef crossbred males is found to have the best potential for greenhouse gas reduction and a reduction of the use of human-edible food when by-products are available. Crossbreeding with early-maturing beef breeds shows a suitable potential to produce grass-based beef with little feed-food competition if the stocking rate considers the grassland yield potential. The results motivate field trials in order to validate the findings.
ISSN:2076-2615
2076-2615
DOI:10.3390/ani13061020