The Beef Industry Has Big Climate Impacts. A New Plan Suggests A More Sustainable Path

A coalition of groups ranging from beef producers and processors to environmental interests have laid out a collection of goals and action items to make raising cattle more sustainable and less taxing on the environment.

The U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef released the plan Thursday, after working on it for years.

Beef cattle are responsible for 18% of methane emissions in the U.S., and U.K. climate change website Carbon Brief reports that’s twice as much emitted compared to lamb, the next most polluting food.

The roundtable’s plan sets a goal of making the U.S. beef supply chain to be neutral by 2040. The group says one way to do that is to change pasture management to include more grasses that do a good job of carbon sequestration.

“More grass, better grass on the pastures, will lead to more carbon in the soil. Then the soil is healthier and is enriched. The plants are healthier and the diversity is better,” said Steve Wooten, chair of the roundtable and the president of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. “It just makes good sense to do these kinds of things.”

While the plan does have the support of many in the beef industry, all of the goals and action items are voluntary. Wooten said the intent is to do the right thing, but also to let the industry determine the best course of action instead of waiting for federal regulations to be established.

“We need to get out ahead of this and wrestle with errant greenhouse gas emissions – take it apart and figure out what you’re able to do to improve the situation overall,” Wooten said.

The wide-ranging plan also addresses land use, water resources, employee safety and animal health and welfare.

Kim Stackhouse-Lawson, a former chair of the roundtable and currently a professor of animal science at Colorado State University, said she supports the goals, but adds there needs to be more science behind such efforts.

“I’m frustrated by the absolute lack of funding to research this and to develop solutions that are actually scalable on the landscape,” she said. “We haven’t had funding to look at enteric methane mitigation from federal dollars since 2010.”