Special Issue "Climate Change and Livestock Management"
Quicklinks
A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2012)
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
By 2050, the global demand for animal protein will double and livestock production will increase its contribution to overall anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, estimates of greenhouse gases from both regional and global livestock production and associated mitigation effectiveness show large uncertainties. This volume will attempt to improve emission predictions through study data from monitoring and modeling of greenhouse gases and elucidate how advanced biotechnologies, improved genetics, animal nutrition, and comprehensive waste management can be used to further reduce the carbon footprint of livestock production.
Manuscripts of original research should advisedly address one of the following cogent and urgent topics: (1) the reduction of uncertainties concerning greenhouse gas emissions by livestock production systems (including both emissions and sequestration), (2) impacts of climate change on livestock systems, (3) development and use of ‘breakthrough’ techniques and technologies for mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions from livestock production, (4) the adaptation of livestock to climate change, and (5) advanced manure treatment to reduce emissions and generate utilities.
Prof. Dr. Frank Mitloehner
Guest Editor
Submission
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed Open Access quarterly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. For the first couple of issues the Article Processing Charge (APC) will be waived for well-prepared manuscripts.
English correction and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those articles accepted for publication that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.
Keywords
- Monitoring
- Modeling
- Livestock systems
- Greenhouse gas
- Adaptation
- Manure management
Published Papers (8 papers)
|
Received: 18 September 2011; in revised form: 10 October 2011 / Accepted: 17 October 2011 / Published: 19 October 2011
Show/Hide Abstract
| Download PDF Full-text (563 KB)
Abstract: This paper examines the vulnerabilities of major livestock species raised in Australia to climate change using the regional livestock profile of Australia of around 1,400 regions. The number of each species owned, the number of each species sold, and the aggregate livestock revenue across all species are examined. The four major species analyzed are sheep, beef cattle, dairy cattle, and pigs. The analysis also includes livestock products such as wool and milk. These livestock production statistics are regressed against climate, geophysical, market and household characteristics. In contrast to crop studies, the analysis finds that livestock species are resilient to a hotter and more arid climate. Under the CSIRO climate scenario in which temperature increases by 3.4 °C, livestock revenue per farm increases significantly while the number of each species owned increases by large percentages except for dairy cattle. The precipitation reduction by about 8% in 2060 also increases the numbers of livestock species per farm household. Under both UKMO and GISS scenarios, livestock revenue is expected to increase by around 47% while the livestock population increases by large percentage. Livestock management may play a key role in adapting to a hot and arid climate in Australia. However, critical values of the climatic variables for the species analyzed in this paper are not obvious from the regional data.
|
|
Received: 28 October 2011; in revised form: 1 December 2011 / Accepted: 1 December 2011 / Published: 8 December 2011
Show/Hide Abstract
| Download PDF Full-text (2482 KB)
Abstract: Recent interest in greenhouse gas emissions from ruminants, such as cattle, has spawned a need for affordable, precise, and accurate methods for the measurement of gaseous emissions arising from enteric fermentation. A new head hood system for cattle designed to capture and quantify emissions was recently developed at the University of California, Davis. The system consists of two head hoods, two vacuum pumps, and an instrumentation cabinet housing the required data collection equipment. This system has the capability of measuring carbon dioxide, methane, ethanol, methanol, water vapor, nitrous oxide, acetic acid emissions and oxygen consumption in real-time. A unique aspect of the hoods is the front, back, and sides are made of clear polycarbonate sheeting allowing the cattle a full range of vision during gas sampling. Recovery rates for these slightly negative pressure chambers were measured ranging from 97.6 to 99.3 percent. This system can capture high quality data for use in improving emission inventories and evaluating gaseous emission mitigation strategies.
|
|
Received: 9 December 2011; in revised form: 21 December 2011 / Accepted: 26 December 2011 / Published: 27 December 2011
Show/Hide Abstract
| Download PDF Full-text (363 KB)
Abstract: Agriculture accounts for 10 to 12% of the World’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Manure management alone is responsible for 13% of GHG emissions from the agricultural sector. During the last decade, Québec’s egg production systems have shifted from deep-pit housing systems to manure belt housing systems. The objective of this study was to measure and compare carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from three different cage layer housing systems: a deep liquid manure pit and a manure belt with natural or forced air drying. Deep liquid manure pit housing systems consist of “A” frame layer cages located over a closed pit containing the hens’ droppings to which water is added to facilitate removal by pumping. Manure belt techniques imply that manure drops on a belt beneath each row of battery cages where it is either dried naturally or by forced air until it is removed. The experiment was replicated with 360 hens reared into twelve independent bench-scale rooms during eight weeks (19–27 weeks of age). The natural and forced air manure belt systems reduced CO2 (28.2 and 28.7 kg yr−1 hen−1, respectively), CH4 (25.3 and 27.7 g yr−1 hen−1, respectively) and N2O (2.60 and 2.48 g yr−1 hen−1, respectively) emissions by about 21, 16 and 9% in comparison with the deep-pit technique (36.0 kg CO2 yr−1 hen−1, 31.6 g CH4 yr−1 hen−1 and 2.78 g N2O yr−1 hen−1). The shift to manure belt systems needs to be encouraged since this housing system significantly decreases the production of GHG.
|
|
Received: 31 January 2012; in revised form: 27 February 2012 / Accepted: 2 March 2012 / Published: 6 March 2012
Show/Hide Abstract
| Download PDF Full-text (174 KB)
Abstract: Climate change is a driving force for livestock parasite risk. This is especially true for helminths including the nematodes Haemonchus contortus, Teladorsagia circumcincta, Nematodirus battus, and the trematode Fasciola hepatica, since survival and development of free-living stages is chiefly affected by temperature and moisture. The paucity of long term predictions of helminth risk under climate change has driven us to explore optimal modelling approaches and identify current bottlenecks to generating meaningful predictions. We classify approaches as correlative or mechanistic, exploring their strengths and limitations. Climate is one aspect of a complex system and, at the farm level, husbandry has a dominant influence on helminth transmission. Continuing environmental change will necessitate the adoption of mitigation and adaptation strategies in husbandry. Long term predictive models need to have the architecture to incorporate these changes. Ultimately, an optimal modelling approach is likely to combine mechanistic processes and physiological thresholds with correlative bioclimatic modelling, incorporating changes in livestock husbandry and disease control. Irrespective of approach, the principal limitation to parasite predictions is the availability of active surveillance data and empirical data on physiological responses to climate variables. By combining improved empirical data and refined models with a broad view of the livestock system, robust projections of helminth risk can be developed.
|
|
Received: 21 January 2012; in revised form: 5 March 2012 / Accepted: 13 March 2012 / Published: 27 March 2012
Show/Hide Abstract
| Download PDF Full-text (123 KB)
Abstract: There are increasing efforts to determine the origin of greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activities (including food consumption) and to identify, apply and exploit reduction potentials. Low emissions are generally the result of increased efficiency in resource utilization. Considering climate related factors, the emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and laughing gas are summarized to so-called carbon footprints (CF). The CF for food of animal origin such as milk, eggs, meat and fish depend on a number of influencing factors such as animal species, type of production, feeding of animals, animal performance, system boundaries and outputs of production. Milk and egg yields are more clearly defined animal yields or outcomes of production than food from the carcasses of animals. Possible endpoints of growing/slaughter animals are body weight gain, carcass weight gain (warm or cold), meat, edible fractions or edible protein. The production of edible protein of animal origin may be considered as one of the main objectives of animal husbandry in many countries. On the other hand, the efficiency of various lines of production and the CF per product can also be easily compared on the basis of edible protein. The pros and contras of various outputs of animal production under special consideration of edible protein are discussed in the paper.
|
|
Received: 22 January 2012; in revised form: 27 March 2012 / Accepted: 31 March 2012 / Published: 10 April 2012
Show/Hide Abstract
| Download PDF Full-text (303 KB)
Abstract: This study compared the environmental impact of conventional, natural and grass-fed beef production systems. A deterministic model based on the metabolism and nutrient requirements of the beef population was used to quantify resource inputs and waste outputs per 1.0 × 109 kg of hot carcass weight beef in conventional (CON), natural (NAT) and grass-fed (GFD) production systems. Production systems were modeled using characteristic management practices, population dynamics and production data from U.S. beef production systems. Increased productivity (slaughter weight and growth rate) in the CON system reduced the cattle population size required to produce 1.0 × 109 kg of beef compared to the NAT or GFD system. The CON system required 56.3% of the animals, 24.8% of the water, 55.3% of the land and 71.4% of the fossil fuel energy required to produce 1.0 × 109 kg of beef compared to the GFD system. The carbon footprint per 1.0 × 109 kg of beef was lowest in the CON system (15,989 × 103 t), intermediate in the NAT system (18,772 × 103 t) and highest in the GFD system (26,785 × 103 t). The challenge to the U.S beef industry is to communicate differences in system environmental impacts to facilitate informed dietary choice.
|
|
Received: 9 February 2012; in revised form: 8 March 2012 / Accepted: 2 April 2012 / Published: 13 April 2012
Show/Hide Abstract
| Download PDF Full-text (574 KB)
Abstract: This paper is a brief introduction to the different methods used to quantify the enteric methane emission from ruminants. A thorough knowledge of the advantages and disadvantages of these methods is very important in order to plan experiments, understand and interpret experimental results, and compare them with other studies. The aim of the paper is to describe the principles, advantages and disadvantages of different methods used to quantify the enteric methane emission from ruminants. The best-known methods: Chambers/respiration chambers, SF6 technique and in vitro gas production technique and the newer CO2 methods are described. Model estimations, which are used to calculate national budget and single cow enteric emission from intake and diet composition, are also discussed. Other methods under development such as the micrometeorological technique, combined feeder and CH4 analyzer and proxy methods are briefly mentioned. Methods of choice for estimating enteric methane emission depend on aim, equipment, knowledge, time and money available, but interpretation of results obtained with a given method can be improved if knowledge about the disadvantages and advantages are used in the planning of experiments.
|
|
Received: 1 February 2012; in revised form: 22 March 2012 / Accepted: 31 March 2012 / Published: 16 April 2012
Show/Hide Abstract
| Download PDF Full-text (182 KB)
Abstract: A spring calving herd consisting of about 350 beef cows, 14–16 breeding bulls, 60 replacement heifers and 112 steers were used to compare the whole-farm GHG emissions among calf-fed vs. yearling-fed production systems with and without growth implants. Carbon footprint ranged from 11.63 to 13.22 kg CO2e per kg live weight (19.87–22.52 kg CO2e per kg carcass weight). Enteric CH4 was the largest source of GHG emissions (53–54%), followed by manure N2O (20–22%), cropping N2O (11%), energy use CO2 (9–9.5%), and manure CH4 (4–6%). Beef cow accounted for 77% and 58% of the GHG emissions in the calf-fed and yearling-fed. Feeders accounted for the second highest GHG emissions (15% calf-fed; 35–36% yearling-fed). Implants reduced the carbon footprint by 4.9–5.1% compared with hormone-free. Calf-fed reduced the carbon footprint by 6.3–7.5% compared with yearling-fed. When expressed as kg CO2e per kg carcass weight per year the carbon footprint of calf-fed production was 73.9–76.1% lower than yearling-fed production, and calf-fed implanted was 85% lower than hormone-free yearling-fed. Reducing GHG emissions from beef production may be accomplished by improving the feed efficiency of the cow herd, decreasing the days on low quality feeds, and reducing the age at harvest of youthful cattle.
|
Last update: 23 June 2011
