Sustainability: What is it, what it means for beef producers, and where to from here?

Resource use, waste output, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from livestock production are currently under scrutiny from a variety of groups. The crucial factor that is often missed in these comparisons is that all foods have an environmental cost and that this is not restricted to foods of animal origin. Nonetheless, the supposition often occurs that global sustainability and food security could easily be achieved if a vegetarian or vegan diet was adopted worldwide

Jersey cattle in Africa: From the Breed's Documented Past to a Profit Index-Linked Future

The aim of this paper was to review the documented reports of the Jersey breed in Africa; and the suitability of the breed for a dairy profit index relevant for the future of Rwanda's dairy development programmes. We extended our review of available reports on the Jersey breed to various African countries to deliver on our main objective of providing relevant knowledge to support long term genetic improvement plans that could be customised to any targeted countries based on the productions systems, constraints, national policies and the local socioeconomic development targets. Through extensive research the authors have confirmed a presence for the Jersey breed across the majority of the continent of Africa, whether current or historic, as a pure breed or used in cross breeding programmes

Sustainability: What is it, what it means for beef producers, and where to from here?

Resource use, waste output, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from livestock production are currently under scrutiny from a variety of groups. The crucial factor that is often missed in these comparisons is that all foods have an environmental cost and that this is not restricted to foods of animal origin. Nonetheless, the supposition often occurs that global sustainability and food security could easily be achieved if a vegetarian or vegan diet was adopted worldwide.</p

The environmental footprint of beef production

The sustainability of animal agriculture is currently one of the most highly-debated issues within food production. Consumers often have an ideological view of the perceived advantages of historical small-scale agrarian systems compared to modern agriculture, which, in combination with a renowned desire to understand how food is produced, leads to the supposition that the “good old days” were environmentally superior. Through improvements in genetics, nutrition and management between 1977 and 2007, the U.S. beef cattle industry increased average slaughter weight (1,338 lb in 2007 vs. 1,032 lb in 1977) and overall growth rate (2.60 lb/d in 2007 vs. 1.59 lb/d in 1977) which resulted in the total average days from birth to slaughter being reduced from 609 d (1977) to 485 d (2007). In combination, these productivity improvements resulted in considerable reductions in feed (19%), land (33%), water (12%) and GHG emissions (16%) per lb of beef over the thirty-year time period.</p

Animal Feed vs. Human Food: Challenges and Opportunities in Sustaining Animal Agriculture Toward 2050

To feed the nine-plus billion people projected to inhabit the earth by 2050, some are proposing that land would be best used through systems producing food consumed directly by humans. There are only two approaches by which this could be accomplished. The first is to harvest forages currently produced and feed them directly to humans. The second is to cultivate grazing land to produce other crops that could be consumed directly by humans. Both of these approaches are impractical on a large scale and have great ecological risks.This report is from CAST Issue Paper 53 (2013). For more information about the publication click here. Posted with permission.</p

From a documented past of the Jersey breed in Africa to a profit index linked future

The paper reports on the prevalence and performance of the Jersey cattle breed in Africa, highlighting its geographic distribution and describing the reported performance and other related characteristics from the early 1900s to the present day. The review examines the contribution of Jersey cattle in increasing the volume and efficiency of milk production across the continent. Data relating to the Jersey cattle breed has been reported in more than 30 African countries based on available material published between 1964 and 2020. A key encompassing parameter of any reference was a well-described consideration of the Jersey cattle breed (as pure or crossbred with other exotic and/or indigenous breeds) with reported performance within a variety of production systems and agro-ecologies in Africa. The main focus was on breed and performance parameters, breed types, percentage of different breed types in specific environments, reproduction method and fertility; survival and longevity; disease incidence; and production efficiency metrics such as: feed efficiency (milk unit per dry matter intake, DMI) and milk yield (MY) per unit of body weight (BW). The main performance descriptors identified were based on observations on resilience under both abiotic (heat, nutrition) and biotic (incidences of pests and diseases) stressors, milk production, BW, nutrition and utilisation of feed resources. From the literature consulted, we grouped key dairy cattle performance characteristics reported in each country under the following areas to aid comparisons; a. Milk production (Milk nutrient value, daily MY, lifetime MY and annual MY); b. Fertility traits and AFC; c. Survival and longevity, d. Production efficiency (Feed efficiency, milk per unit BW and milk per unit DMI and e. Disease incidences. Results of the review showed that the smaller stature and lower maintenance nutrient requirements of the Jersey breed means that it is better suited to tolerate the tropical production conditions in the African small-scale dairy farming sector. Detailed analyses on MY and survival showed that Jersey crosses with exotic and African indigenous breeds performed better than purebred cattle with strong evidence to support the suitability of the Jersey breed in crossbreeding with indigenous breeds for use in smallholder production systems