Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Specifi c crop complexes, DCC, BCC, PCC and ACC, were defi ned for
the dairy, beef, pork and poultry (avian) industries, respectively, in Can-
ada [4,13-16]. The LCC was a critical step in integrating livestock com-
modities in ULICEES. Livestock ration records obtained from Statistics
Canada [18] were combined with animal population data from agriculture
census records [20,21] to calculate the LCC of each livestock industry.
By defi ning the area needed to feed all on-farm animals, the LCC concept
sets limits on the livestock production system. It recognizes that the GHG
emissions attributed to livestock do not stop at the feedlot or the animals.
Even if farmers buy all their livestock feed, the GHGs emitted from the
land on which those crops were grown were still attributed to those live-
stock.
6.2.1.3 THE GHG EMISSIONS AND SOURCES
Like the four previous commodity specific GHG emission assessments,
ULICEES accounted for CH
4
, N
2
O and fossil CO
2
. Since these emission
calculations were described in detail in the previous assessments [4,14-
16], only a general overview of these calculations is described here. Enter-
ic methane emissions from ruminants were based on the Intergovernmen-
tal Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Tier 2 methodology [22], adapted
for Canadian conditions by Vergé et al. [23]. These emission estimates
also accounted for a small but measurable amount of enteric methane
from hogs [24]. The default IPCC tier 1 emission factors were used and
corrected based on the animal weight as presented by Vergé et al. [15].
Methane emissions from manure were calculated using the IPCC Tier 2
methodology [22] for all animal types. Methane emission factors for each
age gender category were then multiplied by their respective populations.
Based on the IPCC tier 1 methodology the total amount of nitrogen
applied in each LCC was used to defi ne the N
2
O emissions from each live-
stock production system [22,25]. The N
2
O emission factors adapted to Ca-
nadian conditions came from Rochette et al. [26]. Different computation
pathways were required depending on whether the nitrogen source was
organic or chemical. The annual amount of organic nitrogen applied was
based on the quantity of manure produced by each livestock population
