Source: Michael Fielding, MEATINGPLACE, 3/8/16


It’s been a decade since the United Nations release the report “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” which (wrongly, as the organization would later note) pegged the industry’s contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at a whopping 18 percent of all GHG emissions.

Although farm animals only account for 9 percent of carbon dioxide production, they produce up to 40 percent of methane and 65 percent of nitrous oxide.

In 2013 the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released an updated report on the relationship between the global livestock and protein industry and greenhouse gas emissions, claiming that the livestock sector contributes 14.5 percent of total human-induced GHGs.

In that report, the FAO said that the actual amount of emissions calculated in each report are “in line” with each other, but that the later report is “a much more detailed analysis involving major methodological refinements and improved data sets.”

Pierre Gerber, one of half a dozen authors of the landmark reports, maintains that – despite the oft-cited 18-percent figure – livestock producers still can learn a lot to make their industry more sustainable.

Currently working in Washington for the World Bank, Gerber has spent the better part of a dozen years in Rome with the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations crunching numbers and, at times, drawing the ire of the meat industry.

But recently the FAO convened a consortium of agricultural experts and livestock organizations to develop a more accurate and universal standards to measure the environmental effects of livestock production.

Gerber said that the Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance (LEAP) Partnership responds to the latest need for metrics to gauge environmental sustainability. “The basic principle is that, to be relevant, metrics need to be both scientifically sound and accepted by all stakeholders concerned. LEAP started with GHG emissions and biodiversity, and the work has expanded to nutrients and water,” Gerber told Meatingplace. “We spoke about the highly emotional nature of the sector; coming up with solutions will require science, objectivity, consensus and trust — and LEAP will contribute to this as long as it maintains a balanced multi-stakeholder engagement.”

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