Source: Savannah Gleim, GENETIC LITERACY PROJECT, 5/14/21


Climate change is real and in many instances, agriculture’s livestock is often tagged as being a leading emitter, but what if cattle and livestock could be one of our solutions? It’s no secret, livestock production is an emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG), FAO estimates their emission to be 14.5% of all 2005 anthropogenic GHG emissions (that is GHG originating from human activity). This sounds like a big number, but when you look at the IPCC’s 2010 sector numbers, the energy supply sector accounted for 35% of the 49 GT CO2 equivalent emissions, while all of agriculture, forestry  and land use (AFOLU) account for only 24%. Within the AFOLU sector, livestock practices and rice paddy emissions accounted for only 5.0-5.8 GT of CO2 eq. emission (<12% of all global emissions)[1]. Knowing that livestock produce methane and other GHG, is it possible that they could help us in our efforts to reduce GHGs?

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