If I had to name one food that’s been in the hot seat over the past 30 years, it would be beef. Linked to cardiovascular disease and maligned for its industry’s dependence on federal corn subsidies, it now has a reputation as the Hummer of foods—an excessive contributor to environmental ills including climate change, nitrogen … Continue reading
Category Archives: Climate Change
Asia / Climate Change / Drought / Livestock
Strike of the Dzud: How conservation can help Mongolia’s herders
Mongolia is currently in the midst of a major natural disaster that we’ve heard little about in the news, but that has already resulted in the death of 4.5 million livestock animals, 10% of the country’s livestock population. The United Nations estimates 120,000 Mongolian herders have lost more than one-half of their herds in the … Continue reading
Asia / Climate Change / Drought / Livestock
Strike of the Dzud: How Conservation Can Help Mongolia’s Herders
Mongolia is currently in the midst of a major natural disaster that we’ve heard little about in the news, but that has already resulted in the death of 4.5 million livestock animals, 10% of the country’s livestock population. The United Nations estimates 120,000 Mongolian herders have lost more than one-half of their herds in the … Continue reading
5 things you need to know about grass-fed beef
The organic movement has taken the world by storm. But what’s truly healthy and what’s just hype? The manager of a grass-fed beef farm breaks it down. With skeptical, beef-centric films like Food, Inc. and Fast Food Nation encouraging the American consumer to question the source of their meat, how do you know what to … Continue reading
New FAO report assesses dairy greenhouse gas emissions
The dairy sector accounts for around four percent of all global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) according to a new FAO report. This figure includes both emissions associated with the production, processing and transportation of milk products as well as emissions related to meat produced from animals originating from the dairy system. Read more . … Continue reading
The next green revolution
After enjoying breakthroughs in the fight against low farm productivity more than four decades ago, farm scientists from the Asia-Pacific region are increasingly in agreement with their worldwide peers that their work is no longer keeping pace with the rapidly changing farm environment. Mapping out an appropriate direction for the future was the focus of … Continue reading
Climate change: The animal connection
In the April 2010 issue of Veterinary Practice, Andrew Knight argues that “reducing the production of meat could help solve one of the world’s major problems.” Read more … (Veterinary Practice) Continue reading
Asia / China / Climate Change / Livestock
Cows absolved of causing global warming with nitrous oxide
Livestock could actually be good for the environment according to a new study that found grazing cows or sheep can cut emissions of a powerful greenhouse gas. Dr Butterbach-Bahl said the study overturned assumptions about grazing goats and cattle. “It’s been generally assumed that if you increase livestock numbers you get a rise in emissions … Continue reading
New Zealand optimistic after agricultural greenhouse gases meeting
The Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases’ inaugural meeting went well, the Government says. The meeting of senior officials and scientists from the alliance’s 29 member countries, with China, Brazil and Korea attending as observers, was largely about giving organisational form to the political decision in Copenhagen last December to launch a collaborative effort … Continue reading
Grazing cattle reduce some greenhouse gases
A new report published in Nature addresses the impact of nitrous oxide, or N2O, which is about 300 times as powerful as CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere. But the Nature study throws an unexpected twist into the N2O story. Biologists had long assumed that the farming of cattle and other livestock was part … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 