Can 100% Pasture-Based Livestock Farming Produce Enough Ruminant Meat to Meet the Current Consumption Demand in the UK?

Abstract

Grassland is grouped into temporary, permanent, and rough grazing types in the United Kingdom (UK), making up more than 60% of the national agricultural land area. It provides avenues for grazed fodder or ensiled forage contributing a large proportion of the diets consumed by cattle and sheep. The official agricultural census data in 2011 to 2020 showed that, on average, UK cattle and sheep farming can produce meat to satisfy 83.3 and 100.8% of domestic cattle beef and sheep meat consumption levels, respectively. Out of the large agricultural census datasets, we used the populations of cattle and sheep, as well as the UK definition of a standard livestock unit (SLU), to normalise the respective herd populations into a total standard livestock unit (TSLU). We then used the annual domestic meat production in dressed carcass weight to calculate cattle and sheep meat productivity per SLU. Using the potential herbal dry matter yields per year and areas of the different grassland types across the UK, the potential total available pasture feed was calculated. This potential production of herbal biomass was translated into the potential carrying capacity expressed in a TSLU. This total potential carrying capacity was partitioned into cattle and sheep sectors so that the routes of pasture-based-only options with which to produce ruminant meat to meet the current UK domestic consumption demands were assessed. The estimated mean potential annual pasture forage feed in 2011–2020 was approximately 82.0 million (M) metric tonnes (t), which can be translated into a potential carrying capacity of 17.9 M SLUs compared with the current mean 9.36 M SLUs in the survey data of the UK. With the ratio of sheep to cattle at 8.2:25 in the national TSLU, the UK national demands at present consumption levels of cattle and sheep meat can be arithmetically met with pasture grass utilisation rates at or above 65% and 50% by cattle and sheep farming systems, respectively.

Growth, Productivity, Yield Components and Seasonality of Different Genotypes of Forage Clover Lotus corniculatus L. under Varied Soil Moisture Contents

“…Biodiversity through the introduction of alternative forages holds promise in mitigating these challenges due to their drought tolerance and adaptability to various environmental conditions [12][13][14]. In contexts such as those observed by this study, livestock producing milk and meat on a large scale are the most demanding of forage for feed under stable conditions [15]. Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) is a forage crop that is excellent at producing great quantities of fresh matter with high nutritional content to produce milk and meat; however, this species is a semi-perennial crop requiring irrigation throughout the year.…”