Sheep Industry News March 2022

Sheep Should Be Part of the Cli m ate Change Solution

CAT URBIGKIT The Shepherd T

flock sizes stay roughly stable for 20 years, then so does methane and therefore related warming, Mitloehner said. By improving animal health, genetics and fertility, livestock producers are able to decrease the number of animals required to produce pounds of product, resulting in decreases in methane emissions. “It’s nothing short of a miracle,” Mitloehner said, noting that forestry and animal agriculture are the major societal sectors that can actually pull carbon from the air and store it – making these industries part of the climate solution rather than major culprits. Targeted management of grazing lands could improve productiv ity for livestock while creating carbon sinks, furthering livestock’s ability to help combat climate change. In addition, it is recognized that the current method (called GWP100) of estimating methane’s warming impact used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change overestimates the impact of constant flocks and herds by a factor of four, as well as overlooks the ability to induce cooling when emissions are reduced. The University of Oxford has developed a new metric – called GWP* – that accounts for methane’s short lifespan, Mit loehner said, adding that he expects a report on the new metric will be employed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations later this spring. An assessment of Australian sheep production using the GWP* metric last spring found the industry’s methane emissions have declined, and “due to declining methane emissions, the Australian sheep meat industry's GHG emissions footprint is equivalent to CO2 removal.”

he well-orchestrated chorus condemning American ani mal agriculture for its role in global warming is deceptive, according to air quality extension specialist Frank Mit loehner of the University of California-Davis – aka, the Green house Gas Guru – during his Opening Session presentation at the ASI Annual Convention. Rather than being the problem, animal agriculture is part of a climate solution. Those who don't like animal agriculture use the global statistics of greenhouse gas emissions to attack the industry in the United States, Mitloehner said, but production in the United States is vastly different than that in developing countries. Domestic greenhouse gas emissions from animal agriculture ring in at 3.9 percent, compared to the global rate of 14.5 percent. For compari son, transportation makes up 28 percent, electricity generation 27 percent, and industry 22 percent of GHG emissions in the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Emissions from ruminants such as domestic sheep emit methane – a potent greenhouse gas that has a half-life of about 12 years. After that, the methane is broken down and converted back to carbon dioxide, and plants can again photosynthesize and fix the carbon back into cellulose. Grasses and other plants that are high in cellulose are then grazed by ruminants that digest the carbon and continue the biogenic carbon cycle. But geologic carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels linger in the atmosphere for about 1,000 years before being rede

posited back into geologic matter. So, the emissions from driving a car today will remain in the atmo sphere and warming the climate while the emissions from animals are short-lived and recycled back into the environment within about 12 years in this biogenic carbon cycle. Animal agriculture in the United States has reduced its emis sions continually during the last 50 to 70 years, primarily through efficiency measures and feed addi tives, while continuing to feed an ever-growing human population. If

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