Agricultural News
Frank Mitloehner Believes Livestock Agriculture Has a Great Environmental Story to Tell
Mon, 15 Aug 2011 05:38:54 CDT
One of the hottest speakers on the agricultural circuit was on the program this past Saturday at the 21st annual Southern Plains Beef Symposium. Dr. Frank Mitloehner of the University of California- Davis spoke for over an hour and cattle producers young and old gave their full attention to Dr. Mitloehner. Before his appearance in Ardmore, we sat down with him on Saturday morning and talked about his effors to put the spotlight on the very positive story that livestock agriculture has when it comes to being able to produce protein in a very efficient way. Click on the LISTEN BAR at the bottom of this story to hear our full conversation with Frank Mitloehner.
Dr. Mitloehner recalled his battle with the United Nations over a study called Livestock's Long Shadow that they released in 2006 which claimed that on a global basis- cattle produce 18% of the greenhouse gases which is more than the transportation sector.
Mitloehner says that McCartney and the chair of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ignored science in the the spring of 2010 when they unveiled a campaign called "Less Meat = Less Heat." The launch came on the eve of a major international climate summit, which was held last December in Copenhagen.
McCartney and others, such as the promoters of "meatless Mondays," seem to be well-intentioned but not well-schooled in the complex relationships among human activities, animal digestion, food production and atmospheric chemistry, says Mitloehner.
"Smarter animal farming, not less farming, will equal less heat," Mitloehner said. "Producing less meat and milk will only mean more hunger in poor countries."
He notes that "Livestock's Long Shadow" produced its numbers for the livestock sector by adding up emissions from farm to table, including the gases produced by growing animal feed; animals' digestive emissions; and processing meat and milk into foods. But its transportation analysis did not similarly add up emissions from well to wheel; instead, it considered only emissions from fossil fuels burned while driving.
Because of the research efforts of Mithoener, the earlier UN study has been retracted and new data shows that only about 6% of total greenhouse gas emissions come from cattle globally- and less than 3% from cattle raised in the United States. Click here for a British newspaper account of the UN admitting they were wrong in how they crunched the numbers on cattle and GHGs.
Beef Checkoff dollars helped Dr. Mitloehner pull together his research into a paper which details the real numbers that make up the carbon footprint of the cattle industry in this country and globally.
Here are a couple of links to the research materials- This is a link to a factsheet from the Beef Industry summarizing the issue and research that refutes the 18% claim.
For those that want to really dive into this subject in depth- click here for the entire journal article- "Clearing the Air"- written by Dr. Mitloehner and a key grad student- all 41 pages of it.
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