Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 3 shows the areas in each of these four crop complexes and
groups land use according to those cultivated for grain, harvested forage,
or improved pasture. The BCC and DCC include all three classes of land
(grain, forage and pasture), but the only land in the PCC and ACC is land
that can produce grains and pulses (annuals). Since soil carbon is generally
higher under perennial forage than under annual crops [10], a shift from
ruminant to non-ruminant livestock production would reduce soil carbon
stock. Silage corn, although an annual crop, was grouped with the forages
in Figure 3. Pasture represents an appreciable land use only in the western
beef industry. It was assumed in this study that most of that land would be
unsuitable, or at least the last land selected, for reseeding to grow annual
feed grains or harvested fi eld crops. Hence, that land would most likely
continue to be under permanent (perennial) cover under the 10% livestock
redistribution scenarios examined in this paper.
6.3.1.2 IMPACTS OF BEEF TO PORK REDISTRIBUTION ON CROP
LANDS AND GHG EMISSIONS
In Table 1, the pork inflation factor is closer to 100% than the beef defla-
tion factor (90%) in the east because the total supply of pork protein is
much greater than the total supply of protein from beef in that region.
The opposite is true in the west because the total supply of beef protein is
higher than the total pork protein supply in that region. The post-redistri-
bution areas in Table 2 reflect the percentages shown in Table 1, whereby
the proportional increase in land resources allocated to pork production is
smaller than the proportional decrease in areas supporting beef in the east,
but is larger in the west. As expected, the new areas to produce feed grains
for the expanded hog population exceeded the reduction in areas that had
produced feed grains and silage corn for beef in both regions. Table 2 also
shows that silage corn was the dominant annual crop for beef feed in the
east, but was not important in the west. Even though there is 3.4 times as
much land in these two industries in the west (Table 2), the total protein
supplied by beef and pork from the west only exceeds the east by 80%
(Table 1).
