Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
TABLE 2:
Crop areas that support the beef and pork industries before and after redistribution
of land from beef to pork production.
Beef
Hogs
Feed grain
Silage corn
Harvested perennials
Feed grain
Before redistribution (ha.10
3
)
East
117
98
1,000
1,219
West
1,818
42
4,944
1,641
Canada
1,994
140
5,944
2,860
After redistribution (ha.10
3
)
East
159
88
900
1,247
West
1,636
38
4,449
1,932
Canada
1,795
126
5,350
3,179
The new area in annuals in Table 3 (fi rst column, ∆cA) does not affect
GHG emissions among the four scenarios because the emissions are al-
ready accounted for in the area of expanded pork. The areas in the second
column, ∆ cA + ∆rA, signify the initial reduction of the beef population,
before reallocating ∆cA back to the pork industry. The third column, ∆ rA,
takes the areas required for the expanded pork production system shown in
Column 1 into account. Column 3 is the result of the differences in areas in
Table 2 for changes in both livestock populations. Because of the stronger
role of silage corn in the eastern beef diet, the encroachment into peren-
nial forage land area for grain production for hogs (Column 2) was much
lower in the east. The portions of ∆rA that must be used to grow feed grain
for the repopulated beef in the third and fourth scenarios are shown in the
last two columns of Table 3. The areas for growing additional feed grain
are about a third higher for Scenario 3 compared to Scenario 4. These
relatively small portions of ∆rA refl ect the lesser role of grains in the diet
of the repopulated beef cattle.
