Towards sustainable livestock production systems: Analyzing ecological constraints to grazing intensity

Conference presentation PD

Seasonality constraints to livestock grazing intensity

Increasing food production is essential to meet the future food demand of a growing world population. In the light of pressing sustainability challenges like climate change and the importance of the global livestock system for food security as well as GHG emissions, finding ways to increasing food production sustainably and without increasing competition for food crops is essential. Yet, many unknowns relate to livestock grazing, in particular grazing intensity, an essential variable to assess the sustainability of livestock systems. Here we explore ecological limits to grazing intensity (GI; i.e., the fraction of Net Primary Production consumed by grazing animals) by analysing the role of seasonality in natural grasslands. We estimate seasonal limitations to GI by combining monthly Net Primary Production data and a map of global livestock distribution with assumptions on the length of non-favourable periods that can be bridged by livestock (e.g., by browsing dead standing biomass, storage systems or biomass conservation). This allows us to derive a seasonality-limited potential GI, which we compare with the GI prevailing in 2000. We find that GI in 2000 lies below its potential on 39% of the total global natural grasslands, which has a potential for increasing biomass extraction of up to 181 MtC/yr. In contrast, on 61% of the area GI exceeds the potential, made possible by management. Mobilizing this potential could increase milk production by 5%, meat production by 4%, or contribute to free up to 2.8 Mio km² of grassland area at the global scale if the numerous socio-ecological constraints can be overcome. We discuss socio-ecological trade-offs, which may reduce the estimated potential considerably and require the establishment of sound monitoring systems and an improved understanding of livestock system’s role in the Earth system

Mapping and analysing cropland use intensity from a NPP perspective

Meeting expected surges in global biomass demand while protecting pristine ecosystems likely requires intensification of current croplands. Yet many uncertainties relate to the potentials for cropland intensification, mainly because conceptualizing and measuring land use intensity is intricate, particularly at the global scale. We present a spatially explicit analysis of global cropland use intensity, following an ecological energy flow perspective. We analyze (a) changes of net primary production (NPP) from the potential system (i.e. assuming undisturbed vegetation) to croplands around 2000 and relate these changes to (b) inputs of (N) fertilizer and irrigation and (c) to biomass outputs, allowing for a three dimensional focus on intensification. Globally the actual NPP of croplands, expressed as per cent of their potential NPP (NPP _act% ), amounts to 77%. A mix of socio-economic and natural factors explains the high spatial variation which ranges from 22.6% to 416.0% within the inner 95 percentiles. NPP _act% is well below NPP _pot in many developing, (Sub-) Tropical regions, while it massively surpasses NPP _pot on irrigated drylands and in many industrialized temperate regions. The interrelations of NPP losses (i.e. the difference between NPP _act and NPP _pot ), agricultural inputs and biomass harvest differ substantially between biogeographical regions. Maintaining NPP _pot was particularly N-intensive in forest biomes, as compared to cropland in natural grassland biomes. However, much higher levels of biomass harvest occur in forest biomes. We show that fertilization loads correlate with NPP _act% linearly, but the relation gets increasingly blurred beyond a level of 125 kgN ha ^−1 . Thus, large potentials exist to improve N-efficiency at the global scale, as only 10% of global croplands are above this level. Reallocating surplus N could substantially reduce NPP losses by up to 80% below current levels and at the same time increase biomass harvest by almost 30%. However, we also show that eradicating NPP losses globally might not be feasible due to the high input costs and associated sustainability implications. Our analysis emphasizes the necessity to avoid mono-dimensional perspectives with respect to research on sustainable intensification pathways and the potential of integrated socio-ecological approaches for consistently contrasting environmental trade-offs and societal benefits of land use intensification

Unexpectedly large impact of forest management and grazing on global vegetation biomass

Carbon stocks in vegetation have a key role in the climate system1,2,3,4. However, the magnitude, patterns and uncertainties of carbon stocks and the effect of land use on the stocks remain poorly quantified. Here we show, using state-of-the-art datasets, that vegetation currently stores around 450 petagrams of carbon. In the hypothetical absence of land use, potential vegetation would store around 916 petagrams of carbon, under current climate conditions. This difference highlights the massive effect of land use on biomass stocks. Deforestation and other land-cover changes are responsible for 53–58% of the difference between current and potential biomass stocks. Land management effects (the biomass stock changes induced by land use within the same land cover) contribute 42–47%, but have been underestimated in the literature. Therefore, avoiding deforestation is necessary but not sufficient for mitigation of climate change. Our results imply that trade-offs exist between conserving carbon stocks on managed land and raising the contribution of biomass to raw material and energy supply for the mitigation of climate change. Efforts to raise biomass stocks are currently verifiable only in temperate forests, where their potential is limited. By contrast, large uncertainties hinder verification in the tropical forest, where the largest potential is located, pointing to challenges for the upcoming stocktaking exercises under the Paris agreement