NEWS stories went from ones accusing meat of being "the new eco-enemy" to stories that actually promoted meat as being the new eco-friend following publication of recent research by scientists at the University of California-Davis (UC-Davis).
The research, "Clearing the Air: Livestock's Contributions to Climate Change", responded to a United Nations Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) report's conclusion that livestock production accounts for 18 per cent of all carbon emissions, i.e., greenhouse gases (GHGs) - a larger percentage even than transportation.
The FAO report, "Livestock's Long Shadow", was published in 2006 and prompted considerable negative publicity that livestock production - and, therefore, meat production - was a major polluter.
However, this conclusion missed several marks, according to Dr Frank Mitloehner, an air quality specialist and associate professor of animal science at UC-Davis and one of the authors of "Clearing the Air".
He offered his remarks on the FAO report and UC-Davis research to the opening session of the Cattle Industry Summer Conference July 30 in Denver, Colo.
Apples, oranges, forests
First, Dr Mitloehner, citing the Environmental Protection Agency, noted that the major contributor to carbon emissions is energy related, that US agriculture in its entirety accounts for only 5.8pc of GHGs, and that livestock production accounts for just half of that amount.
He said his research, which found agriculture's entire accountability to be 5.4pc, confirmed this.
Dr Mitloehner said work like this is based on a lifecycle analysis (LCA), which has three levels. LCA 1 work looks at direct emissions, i.e., manure and urine from a cow grazing in a field. LCA 3 work looks at all direct and indirect emissions - from crops to processing.
He said FAO compared an LCA 1 for transportation to an LCA 3 for livestock production and drew an apples to oranges conclusion.
Second, Mitloehner said FAO also did its research on a worldwide basis and did not consider the extent to which deforestation in parts of the world where forests are being cut down to graze livestock degrades land and entraps GHGs, whereas in other parts of the world, such as in the US, agriculture contributes to net carbon sequestration of forests.
Where land has been clear cut, especially in developing nations, where the energy and transportation sectors are smaller, livestock production "really pops out" as a major contributor to GHGs, he said.
However, Dr Mitloehner noted that the opposite is true in developed nations where agriculture is more efficient and modern. In fact, he said, agriculture has provided a 23pc increase in carbon sequestration in the US since 1990, and in 2007 net sequestration offset 15pc of total GHGs.
The FAO report is skewed against livestock production due to deforestation in developing nations, he said.
Dr Mitloehner said his research, which was conducted last year and published earlier this year, suggests that US agriculture and livestock production should be a model for the rest of the world.
"Many of my colleagues share this conclusion," he added.
Mitloehner said once "Clearing the Air" was published, one of the contributors to the FAO report acknowledged that the UC-Davis work had made significant points, especially on the FAO analyses used to compare livestock production and transportation.
He also reported that many of the media sources that had written negative stories about livestock production based on the FAO report wrote new stories supporting modern agriculture and livestock production.
"The tone has changed dramatically," he noted.
Dr Mitloehner was assisted in his research by colleagues Maurice Pitesky and Kim Stackhouse.
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