Management characteristics of beef cattle production in the Northern Plains and Midwest regions of the United States

A comprehensive life cycle assessment of United States beef will provide benchmarks and identify opportunities for improvement. On-going region-specific data collection is characterizing cattle production practices for a more accurate assessment. This study reports production information obtained via online surveys and on-site visits from 2 of 7 regions: the Northern Plains (Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota) and Midwest (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin). Ranch responses (n = 512) represented 1.6% of beef cows maintained in both regions with operation sizes varying from 1 to 12,500 cows. Feedlot responses (n = 120) represented 9.6 and 3.7% of cattle finished in the Northern Plains and Midwest, respectively. Ranch herd sizes increased and stocking rates decreased moving westward. Average animal BW increased from south to north. Also recorded were bull and replacement heifer numbers; housing facilities; feed production and use; and machinery, energy, and labor use. Feedlot characteristics including entering and final BW, background and finish feeding periods, crop area per animal, and labor were similar across the regions, but the Northern Plains reported larger feedlots than the Midwest. Diets were similar across regions except that slightly more distillers grain and less corn were fed in the Northern Plains. Ninety-three percent of feedlots produced most of their feed (corn grain, corn silage, and alfalfa). Cropland producing feed received most of the manure produced, but a few large feedlots reported composting and export. Information gathered provides production system characteristics and inventory for conducting a comprehensive United States beef life cycle assessment

U.S. manure methane emissions represent a greater contributor to implied climate warming than enteric methane emissions using the global warming potential* methodology

IntroductionIt is important to relate different greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to a carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalence (CO2-e) basis. This is typically done by multiplying the emissions of a GHG by its global warming potential (GWP), usually on a 100-year basis (GWP100). For methane (CH4), the predominant GHG from livestock production, the GWP100 value is 28. The GWP100 method has been shown to not adequately relate CH4 emissions to actual climate warming due to CH4′s short atmospheric lifespan (~12 years). As such, a newer method has been developed, termed GWP*. This method relates current emission rates to previous emission rates, typically on a 20-year time horizon. To date, the implications of using GWP* rather than GWP100 have not been discussed for manure emissions and have not been discussed for enteric and manure emissions relative to different livestock species or geographical regions of the United States.MethodsUsing emission estimate data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), we assessed how national manure and enteric CH4 emissions changed from 1990 to 2020.ResultsThe average rate of change was analyzed by regression. Enteric CH4 emissions remained relatively constant with a non-significant slope (P = 0.51), whereas manure CH4 emissions have been increasing (P < 0.01; R2 = 0.96) by 0.03-MMT/year. Furthermore, investigation demonstrated that the increase in manure CH4 emissions was largely driven by the dairy (25.9-kt increase in manure CH4 per year; P < 0.01; R2 = 0.98) and swine (5.4-kt increase in manure CH4 per year; P < 0.01; R2 = 0.50) industries. Due to the increasing emission estimates, manure CH4 [90.8-MMT CO2-warming equivalence (CO2-we) on average] was a larger contributor to climate warming than enteric CH4 (89.2-MMT CO2-we on average) from 2010 through 2020, when calculated with the GWP* methodology. This stands in contrast to the GWP100 methodology, which suggests that enteric CH4 emissions (191-MMT CO2-e) from 2010 to 2020 were on average 206% greater contributors to warming than manure CH4 emissions (62.3-MMT CO2-e).DiscussionThese results suggest that manure CH4 emissions may be contributing more to climate warming than enteric CH4, and more effort may be required to mitigate this source of emissions

Practical considerations for adaptive strategies by US grazing land managers with a changing climate

Abstract We outline practical considerations for grazing land adaptations with a changing climate, with an emphasis on the ranch operation scale and specific attention to directional climate changes and increased climate variability. These adaptive strategies fall into two themes: flexibility and learning under uncertainty. Ranches and livestock operations with greater land, social, or other capital resources may have more flexibility. Risk can be reduced for managers (ranchers, farmers, operators, and livestock managers) through participation in conservation or farm policy programs and/or market‐based approaches. Bolstering adaptive capacity across landscapes and time can originate from social capital of operators and strategic collaborations among managers and scientists. As climate diverges from historical baselines and the realm of managers’ experiential knowledge, new conceptual frameworks are needed to structure conversations, influence research relevancy and impact, and drive imaginative solutions among researchers, managers, and local communities for socio‐ecological systems. We provide simplified frameworks to help guide conversation, future research, and new imaginative solutions for systems‐scale knowledge needs and adaptation to address increasingly uncertain and complex change at multiple scales. Practical considerations for adaptive strategies by grazing land managers with a changing climate will be accelerated through (1) collaborative efforts among managers and explicitly with science–management partnerships becoming more mainstream, (2) co‐produced research with managers and researchers at ranch scales, (3) development of communities of practice and associated learning opportunities, and (4) continued co‐development and advancement of technologies and tools that result in high uptake adoption by ranch managers

Usable Science for Managing Animals and Rangeland Sustainability

On the Ground: • Animals are critical components of rangeland ecosystems, and domestic livestock provide an extremely important management tool on rangelands. • Decades of research have yielded much valuable information to support sustainable and effective grazing management, but increased complexity resulting in part from expanding environmental, economic, and societal pressures demands future investments in usable science focused on rangeland animals. • Three priorities for usable science are recommended: • Proactive drought planning • Better matching livestock production systems to rangeland resources • Comprehensive synthesis of and effective communication concerning environmental impacts (positive, negative, and neutral) of livestock on rangelands.The Rangelands archives are made available by the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact [email protected] for further information.Migrated from OJS platform March 202