Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
TABLE 3: Changes in area in the beef crop complex as a result of reducing beef production
and expanding pork production, and after repopulating the residual forage area (∆rA) with
beef cattle.
New area in
annuals (∆cA)
beef to pork
Area remaining from har-
vcested perennial forage
Annuals to support new beef
Initial 1
Residual 2
Mix of forage
and grain
Mainly grass-
fed
Regions
ha,000
East
1.1
100.0
99.0
21.3
16.6
West
104.7
494.4
389.7
106.5
77.1
Canada
105.8
594.4
488.6
129.1
93.4
1 area freed after initial reduction in the beef cattle displaced by hogs (∆cA + ∆rA)
2 perennial area remaining after re-seeding to annuals to feed more hogs (∆rA)
The GHG emission budgets for beef and pork production prior to the
four scenarios are presented in Table 4. The fi rst group of four rows il-
lustrates the basic livestock-specifi c GHG simulations generated by
ULICEES. The western beef industry is by far the largest source of GHG
emissions, and methane from western beef is the largest term in the com-
bined GHG budget of these two industries. There was much less east-
west difference in emissions in the pork industry, but both were lower
than the eastern beef industry emissions. Fossil CO 2 was the lowest GHG
emission from both industries while CH4 was the highest. The second and
third groups of two rows represent GHG deducted from beef and added
to pork production, respectively. The remaining data in Table 4 show the
net potential savings or reductions in annual GHG emissions as a result
of the beef to pork redistribution. The values in the fourth column and the
last two rows represent the GHG emission changes from the redistribu-
tion from eastern and western Canada, respectively, prior to the scenario
assessment. The fi rst three quantities in the last two lines show that the
beef to pork redistribution resulted in lower annual emissions for all three
GHGs, but especially for methane because of the ruminant digestion of
forage by cattle.
 
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