This month’s newsletter was curated and edited by: Dr. J.W. Holloway and his Team

Synopsis

This short analysis introduces the concept that red meat can be produced in an environmentally friendly manner, with methodologies now available to utilize the vast quantities of lignocellulosic materials in the world. Indeed, providing some propositions from research that has been conducted in the last decade that reveals methods to reduce the global footprint of red meat production. Mainly, we find helpful in understanding the ongoing impact of cattle, humans, nature, and the environment. Naturally, they are not meant to suggest a comprehensive or exhaustive list of factors that inform this topic, thus, given the purpose and the limits of those writings, as we do not engage any specific theory or method, such as the efficient-market hypothesis or theory. Unequivocally the boundary between humans and technology blurs further; influentially emerging trends that are fueling new opportunities across markets amid geopolitical polarization and stalling progress towards sustainable development. This represents the collaborative efforts of extensive research, ideas, strategies, and scenarios for an inclusive and sustainable future for red meat production.

Interestingly, this synopsis is a result of determinations with an interactive performance by academics, practitioners, and scientists, which investigates the relationship and impact between cattle, humans, nature, and the environment. This includes references to articles on the challenges of the cognitive campaign in the era of modern communications from a variety of perspectives. Collectively, as such, is a significant contribution to the public discussion of cognition and the development of a professional knowledge base among the scientific community globally. Primarily these writings are to reveal robust measures for sustainable existence and experimental narrative concerning the science underlying specifically ruminal fermentation and, more generally, red meat production systems. In addition to the discovery of technologies in improving efforts by developing and making more strategically significant decisions. A takeaway for real choices that bring on new levels of certainty that inspires and shape strategies for leaders to step up and act together as the challenge is not to destabilize an industry.

Therefore, the responsibility of science in creating a coherent vision is essential for a sustainable world in terms of food production. A multi-faceted base in science approach, rather than any single ‘silver bullet,’ is likely to be the solution to methane reduction in cattle. “Researchers know that livestock industries are under pressure to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, and there is an increasing challenge to the industry’s social license as a result.” The Paris agreement had set a target for carbon neutrality by (2050) twenty fifty, and several governments and businesses are starting to comply. “That’s putting pressure on industries to look at low emissions production.” However, several livestock companies sought to offset marketing paths offering carbon-neutral beef products. Most of these companies are buying international carbon options for offsets for hedging purposes and not dealing with the issue of methane production.

Commentary

The world has always been, and now more so, concerned with its future. That concern has become endemic in this era of information overload current with the large volume of compatible ongoing research, with which EnhancedExchange is engaged. Indeed, resource depletion, climate change, biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, along with a rapidly accumulating list of crises may evoke fear of a pending apocalypse. We are living in an interesting time where change is occurring, and we must change course, as the steps taken by some so far display a lack of consistency and systematic negative activity, and a range of improvisation exists stemming from necessity to ad hoc preparation in individual cases. Meanwhile, we must continue to prioritize rigor over-reactivity, strengthen the most diverse voices, and the best ideas, but also never losing sight of what it takes to make a difference. Given the combination of dazzling possibilities and existential threats, it is becoming clear that our generation, along with the next, is engaged in redefining what it means to be human. Humanity’s dominance on earth means that we must take responsibility for managing the planet, at least for the near future.

Therefore, the responsibility of science has never been greater! Global climate change is a new term introduced in our generation. Interestingly, Pogo famously said, “we have found the enemy, and it is us.” Unfortunately, among those illustrations is the almost miracle accomplished by ruminant animals in converting lignified materials into healthful, delicious foods. This accomplishment also requires the production of methane and other natural byproducts that have allegedly been condemned as contributors to global climate change. However, on a net basis, the benefits and narrative of damage must both be a measure concerning red meat production globally, using a weighted numerical scientific manner, which results likely falls on the side of benefits. Additions to the equation include the false narratives attributable to beef and other red meats in recent times. An under-emphasis item is about the considerable nutritional benefits within red meat for human consumption, providing proteins, and more, sustaining humankind utilizing cellulosic energy sources otherwise not available to the human food chain. 

EnhancedExchange provides numerous reasons for production and value to red meat, further defining the lifecycle and nutritional use. The considerable weighted value does attribute to the benefits of red meat at the center of the table across the globe.  Therefore, an essential extrinsic marketing character of red meat in many markets is, how much damage to the environment and our collective future on the planet did the production of the red meat contribute. However, additives to a daily food regimen are under study with the potential of methane reduction from burps by (30) thirty percent. However, problems measured from burps are in the greenhouse gas they emit, named methane, which has a far more significant impact than carbon dioxide. Methane sources are numerous all over the world. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, methane from all agricultural sources in the United States is a third of the sum released into the atmosphere; even still, it is not the most significant source. Another emission abatement item of interest and ongoing research is seaweed, used as a food additive; a variety could reduce methane production by up to (99) ninety-nine percent (Holloway and Wu, 2019).

The fermentation of a cow’s food takes place in the gut and the rumen. In this oxygen-free environment, micro-organisms break down complex carbohydrates, sugar, and starch into volatile fatty acids, for example, which are the main components of the cow’s energy supply. In the process, hydrogen gas is produced thus, which is toxic to rumen microbes disrupting the digestion process, but cows have a solution for this: they incorporate the hydrogen into methane and burp. Because methane has been identified as a primary greenhouse gas contributor to global climate change, attempts are being made to curb ruminant’s methane emissions by government regulations being introduced globally, calling for farmers to cut methane emissions over the next decade by regularly providing ruminants with better feed. However, an increasing body of research provides the underpinnings for the development of red meat production systems that markedly decrease the inherent environmental footprint of the production system.  

The food industry, especially in the West, is presently producing plant-sourced imitation red meats marketed on the basis that their production has smaller environmental footprints than those associated with red meat production. Therefore, as concerning red meat, two paths for protecting the environment are possible: 1) the producers of imitation meats are one solution to reduce global production of red meats, and 2) reduction of the global environmental footprint of red meat production.

The first path has several flaws:

• Imitation red meats have less nutritional value to humans than red meats (They are generally higher in energy, lower in protein, vitamins, and minerals utilizable by humans.);
• Imitation red meats are less savory than red meats inadequately mimicking their flavor (Robustness of red meat flavor results from complex thermic reactions utilizing sugar (glucose), amino acids (glutamic acid) and fatty acids (oleic acid) none of which are prevalent in plants.);
  
• Imitation red meats lack integrity mimicking savory foods (In an era that values integrity, minimal food processing, and naturalness, imitation foods have an irrefutable identity issue);
• Imitation red meats are more expensive than their counterparts (They do not make use of “natural systems” in their production, but are generated artificially through expensive processes.);
  
• Production of imitation red meats makes no use of cellulosic plant materials that are replete in the world, thereby not availing human nutrition to this large volume of potential substrates for human food. (One-fourth of the total global land resource (13.0 x 10⁹ hectares; Maxwell and Milne, 1995) cannot be cultivated and is in grasslands populated by lignocellulosic plants utilizable only by animals having fermentation capacity such as ruminants that produce red meats) and;
• Imitation red meats are made from plant tissues already used in human foods, thereby, globally, not increasing the volume of food streams for human nutrition. (Their production only transforms one human food source into another with the wasteful loss of nutrients in the process).
  

Analysis

The global human population is predicted to grow to (9.5) nine point five billion by 2050 (US Census Bureau, 2008), with a widespread increase in milk and meat requirements per capita conferred by increased global affluence (Keyzer et al., 2005). The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has projected that food production must increase by (70% seventy percent) to fulfill the nutritional requirements of this increase in the global population. Indeed, challenges in science can be overcome with progress, as can obstacles to advancing production opportunities, which respectively provide for the business management services of EnhancedExchange in delivering food products.  Because of the competition for energy, land, and water will accelerate as urban areas encroach upon agricultural land, this production must occur on ever decreasing land areas (Capper et al., 2011). EnhancedExchange has undertaken reviews that indicate these forces will challenge livestock producers to produce sufficient amounts of safe, affordable, savory red meats to meet consumer demand employing a shrinking resource base.

Since (88%) eighty-eight percent of the greenhouse gas emissions in beef production are accrued on the farm, cattle production must bear most of the burden required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from beef production (Hyland et al., 2017). Environmentally sustainable food supply can only be achieved through the adoption of integrated systems that make the most efficient use of available resources and concurrently reduce the environmental impact (Capper et al., 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and Hyland et al, 2017). The role of efficiency in improving U.S. beef system sustainability has been called into question by certain groups and agencies promoting a social or political agenda as opposed to animal agriculture (Nierenberg, 2005; and Koneswaran and Nierenberg, 2008). Capper et al (2009), however, concluded that improved resource use per unit of food output considerably reduced the environmental impact of a unit of milk produced by U.S. dairies from 1944 to 2007. Capper et al. (2011) reported that consumers often have the perception that modern beef production has an environmental impact far more significant than that of historical systems.

Consumer perception is that improved efficiency is being achieved at the expense of increased greenhouse gas emissions. They concluded that beef production in 2007 required considerably fewer resources than the equivalent system in 1977, with (69.9%) sixty-nine point nine percent of the animals, (81.4%) eighty one point four percent of the feedstuffs, (87.9%) eighty-seven point nine percent of the water, and only (67.0%) sixty seven percent of the land required to produce (1) one billion kg of beef. Waste outputs were similarly reduced, with the 2007 beef production systems producing (81.9%) eighty-one-point nine percent of the manure, (82.3%) eighty two point three percent of the methane, and (88.0%) eighty eight percent of the nitrogen oxide per billion kilograms of beef compared with equivalent systems in 1977. The carbon footprint per billion kilograms of beef produced in 2007 was reduced by (16.3%) sixteen-point three percent compared with comparable systems in 1977 (Capper et al., 2011). Hristov et al. (2013a, b) reviewed the literature as to methods to reduce methane and nitric oxide emissions from cattle.

They reported the work of Sauvant and Giger-Reverdin (2009), who showed that as DM intake and the concentrate portion of the diet increase, enteric CH₄/DM intake declines. Hristov et al. (2013a, b) and Hyland et al. (2017) concluded that alterations in the production system that result in improved utilization of the animal’s diet and enhanced system efficiency primarily through improved fertility would reduce enteric CH₄ and N₂O emissions. EnhancedExchange draws on extensive research, thus making determinations using history and science, among other components, within its processes and systems analysis.  In evaluating the position for red meat in the global environmental arena, an important consideration is that red meat makes a substantial contribution to food security, providing essential nutrients and energy to human populations. Rumination allows ungulates to digest fibrous feeds that have little food value for humans, and thus, their contribution to food balances is significant. This contribution is of singular importance in marginal areas of the world, especially in the third world where the agro-ecological status and limited infrastructures offer few alternatives for food production.

It is in these areas also that their value is apparent in that they can convert human food crop residues and fibrous by-products into high-quality edible products. Importantly, often the subject of omission, ungulates further add to the environment as they sustain its growth cycles as they contribute to soil fertility quality through their impact on plant nutrition and organic matter cycles (Gerber et al., 2015). Parallel to their contribution to the food chain, a full evaluation of their position in the environment necessitates an assessment of their environmental sustainability issues. These issues can be attributed to the computed low efficiency of beef cattle in translating natural resources (especially those that can be consumed by humankind) into edible products. For example, water use, land use, biomass appropriation, and greenhouse gas emissions are often computed to be higher per unit of a consumable product in red meat production systems than in any other livestock systems, even when adjusted statistically for product nutritional quality (Gerber et al., 2015).

These computations usually fail to give beef cattle credit for converting highly lignified materials into high-quality human foods or consider that the feeds that cattle consume in competition to humans are utilized in production systems as “icing on the cake”; feeds that add value to beef from forage-fed production units (cow and calf units typically consume more than (70%) seventy percent of their nutrients from forages, not for consumption by mankind). Seven-tenths of the source of the nutrients in beef is a result of forage-fed consumption, which is precisely that which could not be eaten by a human (Holloway and Wu, 2019). The math representation may be more representative with the use of the remaining thirty percent of nutrients concerning some sustainability issues, even conclusions. Therefore, fundamental questions and data exist within the data representations. Gerber et al. (2015) reviewed the literature concerning environmental challenges in beef production at the global level. Beef production is faced with an array of additional sustainability challenges, including changing consumer perceptions, resilience to climate change, animal welfare, and inequities in access to land and water resources.

Within the livestock sector, beef receives the most attention for its environmental impact, which is a calculation that would also vary by country. The carbon footprint for beef did reduce by one-sixth from 1977 to 2007 (Capper et al., 2011). This results from the apparent aggregated contribution that beef production makes to global environmental issues such as climate change and land use (Gerber et al., 2015). Worldwide, beef supply line streams have been estimated annually to emit approximately (2.9) two-point nine gigatons of CO₂-eq, about (40%) forty percent of all livestock emissions (Gerber et al., 2013). The greenhouse gas emissions per unit of product (emission intensity) is the highest when beef is produced on newly deforested land (Cederberg et al., 2011). Cattle are the primary ruminant species making use of about one-quarter of all emerged lands (Bouwman et al., 2005).  The purpose of the three-quarters of developed lands analysis is infrequently a topic of content, whereas all the emerged land is from newly deforested land with the use of that timber into the industry and resulting products.

Assigning the total greenhouse emissions in these instances is an unfair burden to the red meat production industry because some of the emission intensity is due to deforestation itself independent of the enterprise conducted on the deforested land, much less about one-quarter (Holloway and Wu, 2019). Our planet currently has over (1.3) one point three billion cattle, approximately one for every five people (FAOSTAT, 2015). While the goals for cattle husbandry are quite varied, delivering a wide array of products and functions, the vast majority is eventually harvested for beef (Gerber et al., 2015). The debate over the environmental position of beef production is often characterized by a lack of recognition of this tremendous diversity in production and delivery systems. The breadth of systems involvement is by all measures significant, in part, they are in the goods and services they deliver, and the environmental interactions and numerous options for improvement that exist (Smith, 2015; and Herrero et al., 2013).

The inevitable, but is applicable, as much public relations work must be done to counter the bad reputation that is not scientific, that beef production has received in terms of its ecological damage. Steinfeld et al. (2006) of FAO published a comprehensive global lifecycle assessment of livestock agriculture’s environmental impact. It is called “Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options” (LLS), concluding that global livestock agriculture contributes (18%) eighteen percent of total anthropogenic greenhouse gasses. Secondly, that livestock contributes more to climate change than the global transportation sector (Steinfeld et al., 2006).  The per-country definitions and data gathering, then analysis requisite for the raw data calculation determinations for each of the two alleged major industry sector contributors to climate change, is substantive for review by itself. Worse, is that with an accuracy variable too low for a meaningful, reliable calculation, much less a scientific process conclusion the alleged data supporting the premise fails. These conclusions have been widely quoted in the popular press, then often misused in articles.

Intentional or unknowing, the reports exist that make such comparisons as contrasting driving a different vehicle, not to eat meat, or comparing the greenhouse gas emissions from producing a pound of carrots, to producing a pound of beef (Bittman, 2008; Rosenthal, 2008; and Place and Mitloehner, 2012).  These types of comparisons provide lessons of what not to do, though inadequate, lead to misguided public policy decisions such as “Meatless Mondays,” which was adopted in San Francisco (Chang, 2009). A major inappropriate premise in LLS was that land in use or cattle was converted from a carbon “sink” (a net, sequestration of CO₂ from the air into the soil, e.g., the Amazon rainforest) into a carbon source. It is inappropriate to blame beef cattle emissions for this difference. Specifically, since the comparison involves a confounding situation in that when the rainforest is clear cut to graze cattle, the loss of the trees dramatically reduces the CO₂ sequestered regardless of the CH₄ emissions from enteric fermentation by cattle (Place and Mitloehner, 2012). Deforestation alone represents (34%) thirty-four percent of the total CO2 attributed to livestock production in LLS (Steinfeld et al., 2006).

Tannins

“Researchers have known for a long time that tannins can reduce enteric methane production in cattle. Several legume forages were known to contain tannins. “Researchers started with black wattle probably the most astringent tannin that could be found, researchers also know that the browse legume Leucaena, for example, contains tannins, and CSIRO is looking at leucaena’s potential to reduce methane emissions,” Prof Eckard said. In southern Australia, work on a lotus, a temperate legume also containing tannins, had shown a reduction of up to (20%) twenty percent in methane emissions. Prof Eckard emphasized that there were some caveats in that responses were variable when concentrations in the diet were low, and there could also be restrictions on intake and digestibility when there was too much tannin in the diet.

Oils

Work had also been carried out looking at the impact of oils, including dietary fats and lipids, often sourced as by-products from other industries in methane reduction. One analysis showed that for every (1 %) one percent of fat added to an animal’s diet, there was a (3.5%) three-point five percent reduction in methane. That relationship was now one of the offset methods being explored in Australia. Sources of the oils might not come only from by-products. Research in New Zealand was looking at high-lipid grasses, which could contribute to methane reduction. “Researchers have also looked at potential complementary effects, in adding both oils and tannins to an animal’s diet. While not strictly additive, a complementary effect was shown. Some research also looked at grape marc (the residual product of skins, seeds, and pulp left after grapes are crushed for wine production), which contains both tannins in the skin and oil in the seed. “Prior to this work (and the drought), grape marc was a disposal problem for the wine industry. Now, it is completely sold out, mostly to the feedlot industry. So, researchers know that putting tannins and oils together does have an impact.”

Red Algae

Preliminary research has indicated that the answer to livestock that burps methane may be seaweed as seaweed contains a compound called bromoform, which inhibits the creation of an enzyme that produces methane during digestion in cows. Meanwhile, research conducted into microbes that inhabit the stomachs of ruminants such as cattle indicates that these unicellulars transform those animals’ fibrous fare into energy-rich molecules. Indeed, some of which the host animal can absorb and utilize and suggested algavory of this sort may reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from stock animals. However, the long-term effects on animal health have not yet been evaluated, nor have scientists answered questions about whether seaweed would work as a food additive over the long-term.

Extrinsic factors such as ecological issues in beef production are essential in consumer perception of beef and branded beef products, therefore, must also be addressed as the exaggerations about the consequences of cattle burps are leading to inadequate based policy proposals. Experiments in cattle and sheep have shown feeding dried and ground red algae reduced methane emissions by up to (80%) eighty percent. Dietary inclusions of red algae, a seaweed called asparaguses, have gained publicity as potential methane inhibitors in cattle. Prof Eckard said some remarkable results had been produced by a CSIRO team and others around the world. In live animal trials, (80%) eighty percent reductions in methane had been recorded in sheep, and up to (90%) ninety percent in laboratory trials using the seaweed as a methane abatement option. “There are some issues still to be explored, because the algae do contain a bromoform halogenated compound, meaning more work needs to be done on the acceptability of that in the food chain. But again, it gives us a window that these changes are possible.”

Feed Additives

Occasionally in science and research, something comes along that looks like a silver bullet, and right now, newly manufactured rumen modifier compound designed to suppress methane production produced in Europe was doing that, Prof Eckard said. The compound, 3-nitrooxypropanol (3-NOP), is being produced by DSM Nutrition and going through registration in the European Union right now. After one trial in Canada, efficacy declined after it was fed for (300) three hundred days in a feedlot trial, however. “Those of us who have been in research for a long time are cautious about silver bullets, but right now, it does look to be a fairly impressive compound. In theory, it blocks the production of methane in the rumen,” Prof Eckard said. “When it is mixed into diets, its efficacy can be reduced, because it has to be present in every mouthful of feed. That might work well in a feedlot environment, but for extensive grazing systems, slow-release technology might be necessary,” he said. “But watch this space as this product comes through registration next year.”

Early Life Programming

Prof Eckard said one area that he felt had been missed in the field of methane mitigation research so far was what he called early life programming. “There is a maternal influence on the microbial structure of the animal, post-weaning. Researchers know that it works in humans, and ruminants and nutritional intervention in the early life of a ruminant can lead to a modified structure of the rumen bacteria.” “This is something that we should be looking at in methane reduction because it also holds potential for cattle in the developing world, as well as developed countries. Using products like red algae or feed additives like 3-NOP may train animals to be low methane emitters, and then see if that perpetuates through generations. It’s a prospect for the future that we need to look at.”

Methane Reduction Vaccine

Prof Eckard said methane vaccines had already been under study for about (20) twenty years. “This is the point. These things are not short-term solutions they have to be subject to long-term research programs for solutions to come through. “Researchers know that certain proteins are known to be methanogenic in ruminants, and we also know that saliva can produce these antibodies, which is the mechanism by which it comes into the rumen. The research into this is still going on through AgResearch in New Zealand. We’ll wait and see.”

Herd Management

Prof Eckard said there were other means of reducing methane emissions by merely removing unproductive animals from the herd. Audits of livestock production systems often find unproductive animals, either through health or management reasons. Simple things like extended lactation that allowed a manager to change the number of replacements required in a dairy herd could improve not only the emissions intensity but the absolute emissions of those systems, he said.

Selective Animal Breeding

Prof Eckard said there was evidence that the extent of methane emissions per unit of dry matter intake varied from animal to animal and was heritable. “There are some issues researchers still need to think through, though, because breeding for an absolute reduction in methane may be simply breeding for a passage rate of material through the rumen. While that might suit more intensive feedlot systems, it would not suit extensive rangeland systems that need a strong functioning rumen to extract nutrients from poor pastures.” He said there appeared to be a range of options in the industry for addressing the methane reduction challenge. “The industrial sector has a range of clean energy technologies coming through, and the livestock industry may have a future which involves a low-methane ruminant. Researchers need more research around these low-cost, sustainable, heritable type mechanisms like early life programming. As livestock was integral to a lot of developing economies around the world, he said methane abatement in ruminant livestock was a global priority. “But methane abatement cannot be addressed in a typical (3) three-year funding paradigm,” he said. “These things cannot be solved with any less than (20) twenty-year research programs, and we fool ourselves if we think we can do otherwise. It also lends itself to global collaboration, bringing scientists together to address these issues.”

Conclusion

The study of demography allows for the observation of the calculated probability of a reality in the foreseen future across time horizons with more significant error over time, as not all factors are known, and some may be substantially different, plus or minus a large degree. This difference is in part due to developments in science and also management. The future in the coming (50) fifty, even the next (100) hundreds of years, is cloudy as a result of the precedent that we will have substantive encounters that we must overcome. One encounter is on the prediction of growth and the rate of the global population (more than (50%) fifty percent by the year 2050). Factors entail increasing by (70%) seventy percent the food production, suggesting science and management working in parallel for mutual goals, akin to prevent potential mass starvations (Holloway and Wu, 2019). EnhancedExchange question in translation is to develop an environmentally sustainable food supply, which can only be done through the acceptance of integrated systems.

Allegedly systems include reducing the environmental impact of beef production and making the most efficient use of available resources, methods, and technology implementation. It is essential to know the resource use per unit of food output has been dramatically improved since 1944, by example, reducing considerably the environmental impact of milk produced by U.S. dairies. Moreover, if researchers compare equivalent systems from 1977 and 2007, the carbon footprint per billion kilograms of produced beef was an actual reduction by (16.3%!) sixteen-point three percent! Meanwhile, researchers have tracks that induce potential breakthroughs along with industry awareness of other’s systems technologies, patents, and processes for implementation. For example, modifications in the production system, which result as improvements in the use of the animal diet and system efficiencies (including increased reproductive rates), will reduce enteric CH₄ and N₂O emissions.