Improving feed efficiency as a strategy to reduce beef carbon footprint in the Brazilian Midwest region

Environmental impact of primary beef production chain in Colombia: Carbon footprint, non-renewable energy and land use using Life Cycle Assessment

“…Live weight gains in all cowcalf systems were lower than those observed in the rearing phase of extensive farms in Brazil. However, in the fattening stage, the LWG observed for clusters 1 and 3 were higher than those reported for extensive cattle finishing operations (Florindo et al, 2017a).…”

“…These results are lower than CF for the whole cycle of meat production reported for systems under improved pastures in Brazil and Uruguay (Becoña et al, 2014;Florindo et al, 2017a;Mazzetto et al, 2015;Ruviaro et al, 2015). Therefore, it is possible to reach a lower CF for meat production in Colombia by adopting better quality forages and grazing management practices, leading to higher productivity and reducing the negative environmental impacts.…”

“…Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a holistic method to evaluate the environmental impacts, such as the emission of pollutants (ammonia or methane) and the use of resources (land and fossil fuels), during the entire life cycle of a product (de Vries and de Boer, 2010; Guinée, 2002). During the last few years, LCA studies have estimated the environmental performance of beef cattle systems in different Latin American countries such as Argentina (Faverin et al, 2019;Modernel et al, 2018), Brazil (Bogaerts et al, 2017;Bustamante et al, 2012;Cardoso et al, 2016;Cederberg et al, 2011;Cerri et al, 2016;de Figueiredo et al, 2017;Dick et al, 2015aDick et al, , 2015bFlorindo et al, 2017aFlorindo et al, , 2017bMazzetto et al, 2015;Pashaei-Kamali et al, 2016;Ruviaro et al, 2015;Willers et al, 2016), Costa Rica (Mazzetto et al, 2020), Mexico (Rivera-Huerta et al, 2016), Paraguay (Costantini et al, 2020), and Uruguay (Becoña et al, 2014;Modernel et al, 2013;Picasso et al, 2014). The assessed cattle systems included cow-calf, cattle finishing, cow-calf-to-finishing operations, and other production methods such as confinement and intensive, semi-intensive, and extensive grazing.…”

Cattle production in Southern Amazonia: implications for land and water management

“…The use of feed to reduce water consumption or land use for cattle can be deceiving as this strategy often focuses on improving the efficiency per cattle. Feed type and efficiency can accelerate the cattle development cycle and reduce the time to slaughter, leading also to reduced enteric methane emissions per cattle (Talamini et al 2017). However, in absolute terms, a greater cattle population in feedlot finishing can increase water consumption and the indirect land use of the herd through feed; therefore, it is essential to understand the effects of product efficiency in the context of production output.…”