Sustainability and livestock: a doable combination
Abstract
Sustainable development means meeting the needs of the present while ensuring future generations can meet their own needs (European Commission). Rapid urbanization, increased purchasing power, and dietary change drive demand for richer diets and animal-origin proteins, leaving more than 868 million undernourished citizens worldwide and 850 million living in developing countries. Food security could be granted to large populations by reducing food waste, which accounts for 1.3 billion tons per year, or implementing livestock farming and promoting a sustainable food demand. With economic progress and the world’s growing population, estimated to reach more than 9 billion people in 2050, animal proteins will increase as meat and milk demand. Nevertheless, ruminants produce methane, which accounts for most of the agricultural sector emissions (5.8% of the total anthropogenic), raising concerns about their production. If ruminant livestock increase, methane production increases, accelerating global warming inevitably. Depending on resource quality, environmental factors, and social and economic contexts, various types of livestock production systems may vary considerably in sustainability. These livestock systems include extensive grassland, intensive landless, mixed, and family farming systems. Massive worldwide research has investigated the effect of various mitigation strategies. None- theless, the under-representation of certain strategies, geographic regions, the calculation’s robustness, and long-term studies are the main limitations in providing an accurate quantitative estimation of the respective mitigation potential under diverse animal production systems. Ruminant livestock is important not only for producing nutrient-dense meat and milk for human diets but also for providing hides, fiber, manure, and animal power for farming and transportation in many countries and contributing to biodiversity. To obtain this, they eat grass and legume plants that would be inedible to humans or live on land unsuitable for cultivation. Livestock also contributes to muchneeded income for family farmers in developing countries. The buffalo (Bubalus bubalis), represented by a total of 204 million head (3.9 % increase in the last ten years), could play a strategic role due to its peculiar characteristics: the high ability to convert fiber into energy, the longevity, and the adaptation in extreme areas with cold or hot-humid climate where other ruminants cannot thrive. Moreover, it contributes to the sustenance of many people living in rural areas. A multidisciplinary approach considering the environment, animal health and welfare, and social and economic contexts is requested to increase the sustainability of livestock.
Downloads
References
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Livestock and Landscapes: Sustainability Pathways. Food and Agriculture Organizations of the United Nations. Available online: https://www.fao.org/3/ar591e/ ar591e.pdf (accessed in November 2023.
Van Zanten HH, Herrero M, Van Hal O, Röös E, Muller A, Garnett T, Gerber PJ, Schader C, De Boer IJ. Defining
a land boundary for sustainable livestock consumption. Global change biology. 2018 Sep;24(9):4185-94.
Scollan ND, Hocquette JF, Richardson RI, Kim EJ. Raising the nutritional value of beef and beef products to add value in beef production. Nutrition and climate change: major issues confronting the meat industry (ed. JD Wood and C Rowlings). 2011 Apr 1:79-104.
Leroy F, Smith NW, Adesogan AT, Beal T, Iannotti L, Moughan PJ, Mann N. The role of meat in the human diet: evolutionary aspects and nutritional value. Animal Frontiers. 2023 Apr 1;13(2):11-8.
Thompson L, Rowntree J, Windisch W, Waters SM, Shalloo L, Manzano P. Ecosystem management using livestock: embracing diversity and respecting ecological principles. Animal Frontiers. 2023 Apr 1;13(2):28-34
Leroy F, Beal T, Gregorini P, McAuliffe GA, van Vliet S. Nutritionism in a food policy context: the case of ‘animal protein’. Animal Production Science. 2022 Feb 21;62(8):712-20.
Salter AM. Improving the sustainability of global meat and milk production. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society. 2017 Feb;76(1):22-7.
Jackson RB, Saunois M, Bousquet P, Canadell JG, Poulter B, Stavert AR, Bergamaschi P, Niwa Y, Segers A, Tsuruta A. Increasing anthropogenic methane emissions arise equally from agricultural and fossil fuel sources. Environmental Research Letters. 2020 Jul 15;15(7):071002.
Saunois M, Jackson RB, Bousquet P, Poulter B, Canadell JG. The growing role of methane in anthropogenic climate change. Environmental Research Letters. 2016 Dec 12;11(12):120207.
Steinfeld H, Opio C, Chara J, Davis KF, Tomlin P, Gunter S. Overview paper: Livestock, Climate and Natural Resource Use. https://www.livestockdialogue.org/fileadmin/templates/res_livestock/docs/2019_Sept_Kansas/4_Cli- mate_and_Natural_Resource_Use_-_Online_consultation.pdf
Rojas-Downing MM, Nejadhashemi AP, Harrigan T, Woznicki SA. Climate change and livestock: Impacts, adaptation, and mitigation. Climate risk management. 2017 Jan 1;16:145-63.
IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development) https://www.ifad.org/documents/38714170/40864504/ CAR_2018_web.pdf/c88b3b3b-92a4-4a48-9536-ded3c- 83fed87
Brito LF, Bedere N, Douhard F, Oliveira HR, Arnal M, Peñagaricano F, Schinckel AP, Baes CF, Miglior F. Genetic selection of high-yielding dairy cattle toward sustainable farming systems in a rapidly changing world. Animal. 2021 Dec 1;15:100292.
FAO. Animal Genetics. http://www.fao.org/animal-gene- tics/background/why-is-ag-important/en/ [accessed November 2023].
Cammack KM, Austin KJ, Lamberson WR, Conant GC, Cunningham HC. Ruminant nutrition symposium: Tiny but mighty: The role of the rumen microbes in livestock production. Journal of animal science. 2018 Feb;96(2):752- 70.
Johnson KA, Johnson DE. Methane emissions from cattle. Journal of animal science. 1995 Aug 1;73(8):2483-92.
Arndt C, Hristov AN, Price WJ, McClelland SC, Pelaez AM, Cueva SF, Oh J, Dijkstra J, Bannink A, Bayat AR, Crompton LA. Full adoption of the most effective strategies to mitigate methane emissions by ruminants can help meet the 1.5 C target by 2030 but not 2050. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2022 May 7;119(20):e2111294119.
Hristov AN, Oh J, Firkins JL, Dijkstra J, Kebreab E, Waghorn G, Makkar HP, Adesogan AT, Yang W, Lee C, Gerber PJ. Special topics—Mitigation of methane and nitrous oxide emissions from animal operations: I. A review of enteric methane mitigation options. Journal of animal science. 2013 Nov 1;91(11):5045-69.
Veneman JB, Saetnan ER, Clare AJ, Newbold CJ. MitiGate; an online meta-analysis database for quantification of mitigation strategies for enteric methane emissions. Science of the Total Environment. 2016 Dec 1;572:1166-74.
Tseten T, Sanjorjo RA, Kwon M, Kim SW. Strategies to mitigate enteric methane emissions from ruminant animals. J. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 2022 32(3):269-277.
Chiariotti A. Rumen environmental and nutritional strategies to mitigate emissions from livestock. Cuban Journal of Agricultural Science. 2023 Oct 16;57.
Tapio I, Snelling TJ, Strozzi F, Wallace RJ. The ruminal microbiome associated with methane emissions from ruminant livestock. Journal of animal science and biotechnology. 2017 Dec;8(1):1-1.
Thornton PK, van de Steeg J, Notenbaert A, Herrero M. The impacts of climate change on livestock and livestock systems in developing countries: A review of what we know and what we need to know. Agricultural systems. 2009 Jul 1;101(3):113-27.
Cheng M, McCarl B, Fei C. Climate change and livestock production: a literature review. Atmosphere. 2022 Jan 15;13(1):140.
Sabia E, Napolitano F, Claps S, De Rosa G, Barile VL, Braghieri A, et al. Environmental impact of dairy buffalo heifers kept on pasture or in confinement. Elsevier Agricultural System. 2018;159(c):42-49. https://doi.10.1016/j. agsy.2017.10.010.
Grossi G, Goglio P, Vitali A, Williams AG. Livestock and climate change: impact of livestock on climate and mitigation strategies. Animal Frontiers. 2019 Jan;9(1):69-76.
Monteiro A, Santos S, Gonçalves P. Precision agriculture for crop and livestock farming—Brief review. Animals. 2021 Aug 9;11(8):2345.
Tilman, D. and Clark, M., 2014. Global diets link environmental sustainability and human health. Nature, 515(7528), pp.518-522.
Twine, R., 2021. Emissions from animal agriculture—16.5% is the new minimum figure. Sustainability, 13(11), p.6276.
Hou D, Bolan NS, Tsang DC, Kirkham MB, O’Connor D. Sustainable soil use and management: An interdisciplinary and systematic approach. Science of the Total Environment. 2020 Aug 10;729:138961.
Terramoccia S, Bartocci S, Taticchi A, Di Giovanni S, Pauselli M, Mourvaki E, Urbani S, Servili M. Use of driedstoned olive pomace in the feeding of lactating buffaloes: Effect on the quantity and quality of the milk produced. Asian-Australasian journal of animal sciences. 2013 Jul;26(7):971.
Tong F, Wang T, Gao NL, Liu Z, Cui K, Duan Y, Wu S, Luo Y, Li Z, Yang C, Xu Y. The microbiome of the buffalo digestive tract. Nature Communications. 2022 Feb 10;13(1):823.
Contò M, Cifuni GF, Iacurto M, Failla S. Effect of pasture and intensive feeding systems on the carcass and meat quality of buffalo. Animal Bioscience. 2022 Jan;35(1):105.
Abd El-Salam MH, El-Shibiny S. A comprehensive review on the composition and properties of buffalo milk. Dairy science & technology. 2011 Nov;91:663-99.
de Oliveira LS, Alves JS, Bastos MS, da Cruz VA, Pinto LF, Tonhati H, Costa RB, de Camargo GM. Water buffaloes (Bubalus bubalis) only have A2A2 genotype for beta-casein. Tropical Animal Health and Production. 2021 Mar;53:1-4.
