Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
∆
cA = Ap - Ag
(1)
Not all of the land in forage was needed to expand the feed grain crop
to support more hogs. Being a more extensive system, there will be land
left over from the beef industry as the required perennial forage is reduced.
The GHG emissions of the residual forage area (rA) could undergo a fur-
ther change because it is no longer needed by the displaced beef cattle. The
residual area from the initial land displacement was computed as:
∆
rA = Af - (Ap - Ag)
(2)
6.2.4 RESIDUAL LAND REDISTRIBUTION SCENARIOS
It is difficult to predict with any certainty the most likely land use for
∆
rA
from the beef to pork redistribution. Because of this uncertainty, four sce-
narios for the residual forage area were examined. These scenarios result
in a range of impacts on the total carbon footprint of the redistribution
from the perspective of the land use and crop choices for
∆
rA.
• Scenario 1 assumes that ∆rA will remain under perennial forage cover.
• Scenario 2 assumes that ∆rA will all be seeded to annuals, such as for food
(bread quality wheat or cooking oil) or feedstock for grain ethanol or canola
biodiesel.
• Scenario 3 assumes that ∆rA will be returned to beef production with the
same overall herd structure and, hence, the same overall GHG emission
rates per ha.
• Scenario 4 assumes that ∆rA will be returned to beef production with a
mainly grass fed population whose diet included more forage and less grain
than the beef cattle in Scenario 3.
Scenario 1 can be considered a baseline for the other three scenarios.
Scenarios 2, 3 and 4 increase the carbon footprint of the beef to pork redis-
tribution and had to be subtracted from the initial GHG emission savings.
