As the adage states, "you can't manage what you don't measure." One of the key projects of US beef's sustainability research program has been benchmarking the industry using life cycle assessment (LCA), which is a challenge as the industry is highly variable across regions This work relied on the cooperation of over 2000 cattle producers across the USA generously providing information to populate a computer simulation model known as the Integrated Farm Systems Model. IFSM was then used to generate inventories needed for a cradle-to-farm gate LCA

In the US, there are over 720,000 cow-calf operations that are spread out over all 50 states. Over 1/3 of all US farms have beef cows.

At any 1 time during the year, most US beef cattle are on grass and ~15-18% of the 🐂 herd is located in feedlots for finishing. Regional distribution of beef cows (just the females having calves) on Jan. 1st this year. The state of Texas alone was home to over 14% of the beef cow herd. This is why if drought affects TX or the Great Plains, it impacts the whole beef industry.

Where were the 9.3 million dairy cows in the USA in 2017? Each dot represents 2000 cows. Data from the 2017 USDA Ag Census The 31.7 million beef cows in the US in 2017 were spread out in all 50 states, but higher densities found in areas with more pasture/grassland. Intermountain western US has lower density of cows as grazing land supports fewer cows/acre.

Compared to 1961, 2016 global beef production is up 138% and GHG emissions directly produced from beef production are up 61%. Human population grew 142%. All data from UN FAOSTAT: fao.org/faostat/en/#da… GHG emissions didn't grow as much as beef production because the emissions intensity of beef (kg CO2 equivalent emissions/kg beef) went down 32%. However, this global average emissions intensity masks considerable regional variation.

I feel like there's a lot of confusion about digestive systems & dietary classifications of different animals. As an animal scientist, I'm part of a small subset of people on 🌎actually bothered by this. So, a thread of recycled material from my days of teaching @okstateafs You can classify animals by the digestive anatomy & the type of diet animals consume (typically consume, as there are plenty of examples of "herbivores" occasionally eating animal sourced foods). Anatomy can be things like stomach structure & where most fermentation takes place

Not sure how peer-reviewers were able to evaluate the environmental impact scenarios in the #EATLancet paper, as the manuscript itself is pretty skimpy on quantitative details, as is the supplementary materials. For example, below is what the authors reference for assumed #GHGs But, if you check references 4,5,9, and 10 in supplementary appendix, no way those refs are referring to this information.

Ranking of different foods/commodities by #environmental footprints changes based on production differences, but also based on the assumptions of the modeler(s) and the functional unit (denominator of the footprint). Here's global livestock with crude protein as the denominator Here's a UK specific example using nutrient density as the functional unit where beef has a lower carbon footprint than chicken.