Livestock are often cast as the villains of climate change, but we have to ask: which livestock, where? This lecture explores the debate and makes the case for a differentiated assessment of climate impacts from different systems – in particular distinguishing extensive, mobile systems and intensive, contained livestock systems.
Drawing on the PASTRES report – Are livestock always bad for the planet? – the lecture explores the assumptions and biases of current assessments of livestock-related emissions and climate impacts. The lecture looks at the most common approach to assessing impacts – life cycle assessment models – and identifies some of the problems. Most data are derived from intensive systems and do not reflect the realities on the ground in pastoral settings, making it important to use context-appropriate ‘emission factors’.
While methane emissions from ruminant livestock clearly have negative impacts on global heating, we need to be careful about seeing such emissions as equivalent to those involving carbon dioxide as different atmospheric gases have contrasting ‘global warming potentials’. Overall, a more systems-oriented analysis is required that looks at the full array of impacts and also benefits (including potentials for carbon/nitrogen sequestration) of different systems.
Having a more differentiated picture means that injustices – epistemic, procedural and distributional – will not result from an inappropriate science-policy process that discriminates against pastoral systems. Under the right conditions, pastoral livestock systems, the lecture concludes, can be good for the planet.
Watch the lecture
Questions
- What are the biases in data in current dominant approaches to the assessment of emissions from livestock systems?
- When discussing climate change, why are cows and cows not the same?
- What would a ‘systems’ approach to assessing climate impacts of livestock systems look like? What aspects are included that would be missed out in conventional approaches?
- What forms of injustice arise when livestock systems are lumped together? How do these arise, through what processes?
Readings and other resources
Houzer, E. and Scoones, I. (2021) Are livestock always bad for the planet? PASTRES report.
Plus, two others that take up different elements of the main report:
- García-Dory, F., Houzer, E. and Scoones, I., 2021. Livestock and climate justice: Challenging mainstream policy narratives. IDS Bulletin, DOI: 10.19088/1968-2021.128.
- Scoones, I. (2022) Livestock, methane, and climate change: The politics of global assessments – WIREs Climate Change – Wiley Online Library
See also the PASTRES briefing and information sheets:
- Briefing: Are livestock always bad for the planet?
- Info sheet 1: Livestock and climate change: the benefits of a systems approach
- Info sheet 2: Ten flaws in mainstream assessments of livestock and climate change
- Info sheet 3: Putting livestock-keepers at the centre of the climate-livestock debate
And a summary article and video overview:
Cows and cars should not be conflated in climate change debates (The Conversation)
▶ Are livestock always bad for the planet? – YouTube
The discussion at the launch of our Transnational Institute Primer on pastoralism – Livestock, Climate and the Politics of Resources – is also relevant to this session:
▶ Livestock, livelihoods and climate justice: What is the future of animal agriculture? – YouTube
Further reading
- Alibés, J., García, J., Herrera, P. M., Llorente, M., Majadas, J., Manzano, P., Moreno, G., Navarro, A., Orodea, M. and Oteros-Rozas, E. (2020) Extensive Farming and Climate Change: An in-Depth Approach. Fundación Entretantos.
- Beal, T. et al. (2023) Estimated micronutrient shortfalls of the EAT–Lancet planetary health diet (thelancet.com)
- Clark, M. and Tilman, D. (2017) ‘Comparative analysis of environmental impacts of agricultural production systems, agricultural input efficiency, and food choice’, Environmental Research Letters 12(6): 064016.
- Garnett, T., Godde, C., Muller, A., Röös, E., Smith, P., De Boer, I. J. M., zu Ermgassen, E., Herrero, M., Van Middelaar, C. E. and Schader, C. (2017) Grazed and Confused?: Ruminating on Cattle, Grazing Systems, Methane, Nitrous Oxide, the Soil Carbon Sequestration Question – And What It All Means for Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Oxford: Food Climate Research Network.
- Gerber, P. J., Steinfeld, H., Henderson, B., Mottet, A., Opio, C., Dijkman, J., Falcucci, A. and Tempio, G. (2013) Tackling Climate Change through Livestock: A Global Assessment of Emissions and Mitigation Opportunities. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
- Goopy, J. P., Ndung’u, P. W., Onyango, A., Kirui, P. and Butterbach-Bahl, K. (2021) ‘Calculation of new enteric methane emission factors for small ruminants in western Kenya highlights the heterogeneity of smallholder production systems’, Animal Production Science 61(6): 602–612.
- Hristov, A. N. (2012) ‘Historic, pre-European settlement, and present-day contribution of wild ruminants to enteric methane emissions in the United States’, Journal of Animal Science 90(4): 1371–1375.
- Leroy, F. et al. (2022), Animal source foods in healthy, sustainable, and ethical diets – An argument against drastic limitation of livestock in the food system – ScienceDirect
- Manzano, P., del Prado, A. and Pardo, G. (2023) Comparable GHG emissions from animals in wildlife and livestock-dominated savannas, NPJ Climate and Atmospheric Science 6:27
- Manzano, P. and White, S. (2019) ‘Intensifying pastoralism may not reduce greenhouse gas emissions: Wildlife-dominated landscape scenarios as a baseline in life-cycle analysis’, Climate Research 77: 91–97.
- Mottet, A. and Steinfeld, H. (2018) Cars or livestock: which contribute more to climate change? (trust.org)
- Paul, B.K., Butterbach-Bahl, K., Notenbaert, A., Nderi, A.N. and Ericksen, P. (2020) ‘Sustainable livestock development in low-and middle-income countries: shedding light on evidence-based solutions’, Environmental Research Letters 16(1): 011001.
- Poore, J. and Nemecek, T. (2018) ‘Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers’, Science 360(6392): 987–992.
- Steinfeld, H., Gerber, P., Wassenaar, T. D., Nations, F. and A. O. of the U., Castel, V., Rosales, M., M, M. R. and Haan, C. de (2006) Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options. Rome: FAO.
A series of case studies offer a ‘systems’ approach to looking at extensive livestock systems (see pages 40-45 of main report for a summary):
- Arca, P., Vagnoni, E., Duce, P. and Franca, A. (2021) ‘How does soil carbon sequestration affect greenhouse gas emissions from a sheep farming system? Results of a life cycle assessment case study’, Italian Journal of Agronomy, 10.4081/ija.2021.1789.
- Assouma, M. H., Hiernaux, P., Lecomte, P., Ickowicz, A., Bernoux, M. and Vayssières, J. (2019) ‘Contrasted seasonal balances in a Sahelian pastoral ecosystem result in a neutral annual carbon balance’, Journal of Arid Environments 162: 62–73. See also Perspective summary.
- Pardo, G., Casas, R., del Prado, A. and Manzano, P., (2023) ‘Carbon footprint of transhumant sheep farms: accounting for natural baseline emissions in Mediterranean systems’, The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, pp.1-16.
- Zhuang, M. Gongbuzeren and Li, W. (2017) ‘Greenhouse gas emission of pastoralism is lower than combined extensive/intensive livestock husbandry: a case study on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau of China’, Journal of Cleaner Production 147: 514–522.
Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Resilience - PASTRES 