Green house gas (GHG) emissions are highly variable between and within production systems and the optimisation, or management, of animal production systems has not yet been considered so there is room for possible improvement.
There is potential to reduce emissions from livestock systems by selection on correlated traits.
Decreasing the production of methane from ruminant livestock is desirable both as a strategy to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and as a means of improving feed conversion efficiency.
There’s no definitive answer to what the influence of biofuel production will be on concentrate animal feeding in the US - it’s a complex question and there’s a whole matrix of ‘players’ to consider.
Co-products from the biofuel industry have the potential to be important feed sources for the pig and poultry industries.
“In five or 10 years, grain will not be something that we feed to ruminants.”
There are a whole range of strategies that will help to reduce methane emissions from livestock and these provide scientists and livestock farmers with both a challenge and an opportunity
Scientists and farmers need to ask themselves two questions when considering the possible impact of climate change on current UK livestock production systems – do systems need to be more ‘sustainable’ and should we be doing more to prepare for the future?
Animal scientists have a key role to play in providing robust and objective data concerning the impact on livestock production and agriculture on climate change.
