Greenhouse gas emissions from ruminant supply chains

1 A global life cycle assessment Greenhouse gas emissions from ruminant supply chainsA report prepared by: food AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONSA nimal Production and Health DivisionA global life cycle assessment Greenhouse gas emissions from ruminant supply chainsRecommended CitationOpio, C., Gerber, P., Mottet, A., Falcucci, A., Tempio, G., MacLeod, M., Vellinga, T., Henderson, B. & Steinfeld, H. 2013. Greenhouse gas emissions from ruminant supply chains A global life cycle assessment. food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), designations employed and the presentation of material in this information product do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) concerning the legal or development status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

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3 The analysis was conducted at the Animal Production and Health Division of FAO and co-financed by the Mitigation of Climate Change in Agriculture (MICCA) programme. The following persons and institutions contributed to this work:Study team: Pierre Gerber (Team Leader FAO) Carolyn Opio (Principal investigator FAO) Theun Vellinga (Livestock modeller Wageningen University) Alessandra Falcucci and Giuseppe Tempio (GIS Modeler FAO) Guya Gianni, Benjamin Henderson, Michael MacLeod, Harinder Makkar, Anne Mottet , Tim Robinson and Viola Weiler (Data collection and analysis FAO)The following provided comments, views and information that contributed to the analysis: Nico van Belzen (for the International Dairy Federation) Imke de Boer (Wageningen University) Christel Cederberg (Swedish Institute for food and Biotechnology and Chalmers University of Technology, G thenburg) Jeroen Dijkman (FAO) Garg (National Dairy Development Board, India) Vincent Gitz (FAO) Mario Herrero (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) Muhammad Ibrahim (Centro Agron mico Tropical de Investigaci n y Ense anza, Costa Rica) Hsin Huang (for the International Meat Secretariat) Stewart Ledgard (AgResearch New Zealand) Adrian Leip (Joint Research Centre of the European Commission Ispra) Brian Lindsay (for the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative) Tim McAllister (Agriculture and Agri- food Canada) Alexandre Meybeck (FAO)

4 Jean-Fran ois Soussana (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, France) Marja Liisa TapioBistrom (FAO, for the MICCA Programme) Greg Thoma (University of Arkansas, United States) Tom Wassenaar (Centre de coop ration internationale en recherche agronomique pour le d veloppement, France)Report writing: Carolyn Opio, Pierre Gerber, Anne Mottet, Alessandra Falcucci, Giuseppe Tempio, Michael MacLeod, Theun Vellinga, Benjamin Henderson, and Henning of contentsList of tables viiList of figures viiiAbbreviations xDefinitions of commonly-used terms xiiExecutive Summary xv1. InTroducTIon background Scope of this report The Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model Outline of this report 32.

5 OvervIew of The Global ruminant secTor 53. meThods Choice of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) General principles of LCA Use of LCA in this assessment Functional unit System boundary Sources of GHG emissions Overview of calculation method Spatial variation and the use of Geographic Information System Emission factors Land use and land-use change Data sources and management Allocation of emissions between products, by-products and services Production system typology 194. resulTs Cattle Total production, absolute emissions and emission intensities emissions by production system and agro-ecological zone Regional emissions , production and emission intensities buffalo Total production, absolute emissions , and emission intensities emissions by production system and agro-ecological zone Regional production emissions and emission intensities Small Ruminants Total production, absolute emissions , and emission intensities emissions by production system and agro-ecological zone Regional production, emissions and emission intensities Summary of results Comparison between ruminant species Emission intensity gap within systems, climatic zones and regions 475.

6 DIscussIon Methane emissions from enteric fermentation emissions from feed production Nitrous oxide from feed production Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use in feed production Carbon dioxide emissions from land-use change emissions from manure management Methane from manure management Nitrous oxide from manure management Comparison with other studies Analysis of uncertainty The approach Results from the uncertainty analysis 776. conclusIon 83references 85 APPENDIx A overvIew of The Global lIvesTock envIronmenTal assessmenT model (GLEAM) 95 APPENDIx B daTa and daTa sources 111 APPENDIx C ChAnGE s in CArbon stoCks rELA tEd to LAnd usE And LAnd-usE ChAnGE 127 APPENDIx D PosTfarm emissions 153 APPENDIx E emissions relaTed To enerGy use 161 APPENDIx F rELAtivE vALuE of sLA uGhtEr by-produCts And EffEC t on ALLoCA tion of emissions 171 APPENDIx G MAps 175 APPENDIx H counTry lIsT 189viilist of tables1.

7 Sources of GHG emissions included and excluded in this assessment 122. Description of emission categories used in this assessment 133. Overview of the data sourced for the preparation of this assessment 174. Global production, absolute GHG emissions and emission intensities for milk and beef 215. Global production, emissions and emission intensity for buffalo milk and meat 326. Global production, emissions and emission intensity for small ruminants 377. Variation of cattle emission intensities within regions, systems and agro-ecological zone 488. Variation of buffalo milk emission intensities within regions, systems and agro-ecological zone 499. Variation of small ruminants emissions intensities within regions, system and agro-ecological zone 5010. Regional sources of soybean and soybean cakes in 2005 6611. Main exporters of soybean and soybean cakes in 2005 6612.

8 Regional comparison of land-use change emissions associated with soybean production 6713. Annual carbon stock changes and emissions from pasture expansion in Latin America 6814. Comparison of emission intensities for beef cattle 7115. Comparison of emission intensities for small ruminants 7216. Summary of parameters and uncertainty distributions used in the Monte Carlo simulation runs for dairy and beef in France 7417. Summary of parameters and uncertainty distributions used in the Monte Carlo simulation runs for beef in Paraguay 7518. Emission intensity for imported soybean and soybean cake used in France 7619. Default carbon stock values for Paraguay and uncertainty values of carbon pools 7620. Summary of results from Monte Carlo analysis for mixed dairy and beef production in France 7821. Impact of alternative soybean scenarios on emission intensity for dairy and beef in France 7922.

9 Effects of alternative LUC uncertainty estimates on average emission intensity for beef production in Paraguay 8023. Percent Contribution to Variance (CoV) and Rank Correlation Coefficient (RCC) in mixed dairy and beef systems in France 8124. Percent Contribution to Variance (CoV) and Rank Correlation Coefficient (RCC) for grazing beef systems in Paraguay 81viiiList of figures1. System boundary as defined for this assessment 112. Overview of the GLEAM modules and computation flows 143. An illustration of production activities and partitioning of total emissions to products and services from cattle 184. Classification of ruminant production systems used in the assessment 195. Relative contribution of different processes to total GHG emissions from the global cattle sector 226. Contribution to total milk and beef production by production system and agro-ecological zone 237.

10 Emission intensities for milk by production system and agro-ecological zone 258. Emission intensities for beef by production system and agro-ecological zone 269. Regional contribution to milk and meat protein 2710. emissions per kg meat and milk protein, comparing allocation of emissions to different outputs 2711a. Regional variation in GHG emission intensities for cow milk 2811b. Regional variation in GHG emission intensities for beef 2912. Regional comparison of emission intensity per kilogram of carcass 3013. Relative contribution of different processes to GHG emission profile of buffalo milk and meat 3214. Emission intensities for buffalo milk by production system and agro-ecological zone 3415. Emission intensities for buffalo meat by production system and agro-ecological zone 3516a. Regional variation in GHG emission intensities for buffalo milk 3616b.