Climate change has taken a back seat on the airwaves in recent months given the devastating war in Ukraine and the many changes it is bringing to everybody’s lives.
While it’s been quiet enough in terms of headlines, the threat of climate change is still very real and won’t be going away.
Food security has also come into play in recent weeks, and suddenly stroking a pen through national cattle herds, culling cows or rewilding large tracts of the west of Ireland may not seem like a good idea any more. So what should we do?
Firstly, the agricultural sector would be foolish to think that climate change is going away.
The Irish Government has set a target to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
The Climate Action Plan 2021 has proposed a target for agriculture to reduce emissions by 22% to 30% by 2030.
The Teagasc MACC (Marginal Abatement Cost curve) highlights areas like fertiliser use, feed additives, genetics and low emission slurry spreading as areas that require some attention.
At the launch of the ICBF Beef Benchmark Report at Urard, Urlingford, Co Tipperary, were Shane Butler, Denis Large, Andrew Cromie and Stephen Connolly. \ Odhran Ducie
One area where massive improvements can be made is lowering the age of slaughter of beef animals. Just 6% of spring born heifers are currently slaughtered off grass at the end of the second grazing season.
From a profitability and carbon footprint point of view, it makes sense to increase this figure.
Progress is already being made in this area with the average age at slaughter reducing by 45 days since 2010 with a significant acceleration in the last 12 months.
In 2021, slaughter age for prime cattle reduced by 21 days, while slaughter age for steers reduced by 26 days.
Outside effects like the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and higher costs in 2021/2022 have likely had an impact on this, but the data still shows that it can be done.
Table 1 outlines the different carbon output from different finishing systems.
We see that a heifer slaughtered at the end of the second grazing season produces 2.9 tonnes of carbon, while a heifer slaughtered at the end of the third grazing season 12 months later producing 4.6 tonnes of carbon.
The 12-month period brought a carcase gain of 48kg.
Efficiency gains through better liveweight gain will bring both increased profitability along with reduced carbon footprint.
ABP Beef
Benchmark Report
ABP have teamed up with ICBF to launch the first ever beef benchmark report. The report pulls on science developed by Teagasc, ICBF and Abacus Bio to determine the CO2e that is produced over an animal’s lifetime.
The model predicts an animal’s CO2e by taking into account animal specific information like carcase weight, gender and breed, carcase data and Euro-Star Indexes.
This is then coupled together with Teagasc data on the typical diet of beef animals to determine their carbon output.
At the moment the report is being rolled out to 1,300 ABP suppliers, but it’s expected that more processors will come on board in the coming months.
Beef finishers will be able to log in to their ICBF Herdplus accounts and look up the carbon footprint of individual animals in their herd including herd averages and where they rank in % against the national average and top 10%.
Reducing age at slaughter through better breeding, nutrition and health will help reduce the GHG emissions of animals.
Improving liveweight gain at grass and making quality silage will also aid the reduction.
Climate change has taken a back seat on the airwaves in recent months given the devastating war in Ukraine and the many changes it is bringing to everybody’s lives.
While it’s been quiet enough in terms of headlines, the threat of climate change is still very real and won’t be going away.
Food security has also come into play in recent weeks, and suddenly stroking a pen through national cattle herds, culling cows or rewilding large tracts of the west of Ireland may not seem like a good idea any more. So what should we do?
Firstly, the agricultural sector would be foolish to think that climate change is going away.
The Irish Government has set a target to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
The Climate Action Plan 2021 has proposed a target for agriculture to reduce emissions by 22% to 30% by 2030.
The Teagasc MACC (Marginal Abatement Cost curve) highlights areas like fertiliser use, feed additives, genetics and low emission slurry spreading as areas that require some attention.
At the launch of the ICBF Beef Benchmark Report at Urard, Urlingford, Co Tipperary, were Shane Butler, Denis Large, Andrew Cromie and Stephen Connolly. \ Odhran Ducie
One area where massive improvements can be made is lowering the age of slaughter of beef animals. Just 6% of spring born heifers are currently slaughtered off grass at the end of the second grazing season.
From a profitability and carbon footprint point of view, it makes sense to increase this figure.
Progress is already being made in this area with the average age at slaughter reducing by 45 days since 2010 with a significant acceleration in the last 12 months.
In 2021, slaughter age for prime cattle reduced by 21 days, while slaughter age for steers reduced by 26 days.
Outside effects like the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and higher costs in 2021/2022 have likely had an impact on this, but the data still shows that it can be done.
Table 1 outlines the different carbon output from different finishing systems.
We see that a heifer slaughtered at the end of the second grazing season produces 2.9 tonnes of carbon, while a heifer slaughtered at the end of the third grazing season 12 months later producing 4.6 tonnes of carbon.
The 12-month period brought a carcase gain of 48kg.
Efficiency gains through better liveweight gain will bring both increased profitability along with reduced carbon footprint.
ABP Beef
Benchmark Report
ABP have teamed up with ICBF to launch the first ever beef benchmark report. The report pulls on science developed by Teagasc, ICBF and Abacus Bio to determine the CO2e that is produced over an animal’s lifetime.
The model predicts an animal’s CO2e by taking into account animal specific information like carcase weight, gender and breed, carcase data and Euro-Star Indexes.
This is then coupled together with Teagasc data on the typical diet of beef animals to determine their carbon output.
At the moment the report is being rolled out to 1,300 ABP suppliers, but it’s expected that more processors will come on board in the coming months.
Beef finishers will be able to log in to their ICBF Herdplus accounts and look up the carbon footprint of individual animals in their herd including herd averages and where they rank in % against the national average and top 10%.
Reducing age at slaughter through better breeding, nutrition and health will help reduce the GHG emissions of animals.
Improving liveweight gain at grass and making quality silage will also aid the reduction.
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