By Casey Jensen
Courtland senior
It’s a warm August Saturday night and you are walking through the beef barn at your local county fair. What is the first thing you notice? Probably not the methane emissions from the livestock.
Now imagine that it was a barn full of running cars. Would you still want to walk through?
For more than a century now, the beef industry has been a crucial part of the Midwest economy. So why are cows getting such a bad rap all of a sudden? One main reason environmentalists pick on beef is because of methane, a greenhouse gas that cattle produce, which is 28 times stronger at retaining heat in the atmosphere in comparison to carbon dioxide, according to Sara Place of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.
The United States is one of the most efficient producers of beef in the world, ranking fourth in total number of cattle while No. 1 in total beef production. The U.S. keeps producing more and more beef with less head and has been since the mid ’70s. Not only are we producing more with less, the cattle themselves are becoming more efficient, requiring less feed, water, and land.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in its 2016 study that the leading cause of greenhouse gasses in the U.S. was electricity production at around 28 percent, while all of animal production only racks up a total of 3.9 percent. Many studies that show that livestock represents over half of the emissions, usually targeting beef, but what most people do not take the time to investigate is how they come up with these numbers.
One study suggested that livestock accounted for more greenhouse gas than the whole transportation sector, which caused a whirlwind in the national media. To come up with this number, every single aspect of the beef production was accounted for in the emissions report, from fertilizer production to grow feed to the actual direct emissions from the cattle. But when they looked at transportation, they did not take such a vast approach, which skewed the data. Since then the publishers have come forth and claimed their error.
Will giving up beef help save the environment? I would say that it probably will not. A study from the University of California-Davis said that if the new trend of meatless Mondays was embraced by everyone in the United States, it would only decrease the total emissions by a half of a percent.
So what else can be done to help the environment but not hurt the beef economy? UC-Davis might be onto something. Research they conducted in 2018 cut the normal methane emissions of a cow in half. So how did they do it and why is no one talking about it? Surprisingly, the key ingredient was seaweed. There were three groups in the trial; the first group received 1 percent of its daily feed intake as seaweed, the second received half a percent, and the third none. The trial was repeated on three separate occasions.
The results were stunning just after the first day of the trial. Methane emissions were cut in half for the cattle that received the high dose of seaweed. The seaweed inhibited an enzyme in the cows’ first stomach, the rumen, which helps cause the production of methane gas. There is still a long way to go with this to make it a sustainable answer, but it is a good start.
Beef production is a key part to the Midwest’s economy and a way of life for many people. Beef producers and ranchers are dedicated environmental stewards and take pride in preserving the land for future generations.
Casey Jensen, a 2015 Pike Valley High School graduate, graduated this spring with a degree in agricultural business from Fort Hays State University. He is the son of Kirk and Stephanie Jensen, Courtland.
This essay on a topic in agriculture was researched and written by a student as part of a project in a senior animal science class at Fort Hays State University. The project director is Dr. Brittany Howell, associate professor of agriculture, bjhowell@fhsu.edu, 785-628-4015.