Source: Michael Fielding, MEATINGPLACE, 9/6/16


A new interactive tool released by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) allows producers to calculate greenhouse-gas emissions from livestock.

GLEAM-i, the Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model interactive, provides answers to a wide range of questions. For example, as a small farmer, how can you get your animals to produce more meat? If you're a policy maker, what practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from livestock should you support?

Based on GLEAM, the model developed by FAO's Animal Production and Health Division to support policy and practice change to achieve sustainable livestock development, GLEAM-i can be run by anyone using the Excel software. It includes variables including countries, the number and types of livestock, feed materials, manure management and housing conditions.

"The objective of GLEAM is to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ensure that livestock activities are as efficient as possible so that they can continue to contribute to people's food, nutrition and livelihood needs while utilizing fewer natural resources," Anne Mottet, livestock policy officer at FAO, said in a news release.

The 2006 United Nations (UN) report, "Livestock's Long Shadow” which said that livestock contribute 18 percent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions worldwide, a greater percentage than transportation, still pervades the media. But that figure has been widely challenged by scientists. It is estimated that the livestock sector is responsible for 14.5 percent of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.

FAO researchers have said that producers may increase production and reduce emissions by nearly a third just by using GLEAM-i.

Precise information about the environmental footprint of livestock supply chains may help stakeholders to make better-informed decisions and reduce greenhouse gases emissions, according to FAO. "For example, governments can use GLEAM-i to prepare national inventories and to develop policies for improved efficiency in animal husbandry, feed and manure management," Mottet said.

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