Download or read book Life Cycle Assessment of Integrated Crop Livestock Production System in Northern Great Plains United States written by Prashansa Shrestha and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 554 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation focuses on the scientific quantification of environmental impacts of agricultural management to understand the life cycle of a cradle-to-field-gate production system. Agricultural systems must include efficient land use, economic resources, and reduce environmental impacts to meet sustainable food production goals. Anthropogenic activity has a significant and on-going impact on agroecosystems. The growing global food demand, grain and meat yields, residue and land use, and resource limitations have a significant role in increasing ecosystem service impacts. The general hypothesis is that a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario is not a sustainable agricultural production system. The objective of this research is to understand environmental burdens in the agricultural sytem of the northern Great Plains (NGP) using life cycle assessment (LCA). Three phases of studies are included: 1) agronomy, 2) livestock, and 3) integrated crop livestock system (ICL) within no-till farm practices of NGP.
Download or read book A Life Cycle Assessment of the Beef Cattle Production System for the Northern Great Plains US written by Christopher D. Lupo and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A life cycle assessment (LCA) model was developed to estimate the environmental impacts associated with four different management practices for beef production in the Northern Great Plains (NGP) U.S. The ISO-compliant model followed a "gate to gate" approach, and included feed production, feed manufacturing and pumping, mineral/supplement production, transportation, enteric emissions, and manure emissions and handling. Four distinct operation scenarios were modeled based on production strategies common to the NGP: normal operation, early weaning of the calf, fast-track backgrounding, and grassfed. Model results were normalized to one kg beef carcass, and midpoint impacts (climate change, soil acidification, freshwater and marine eutrophication, and terrestrial ecotoxicity) and endpoint impacts (damage to human health, ecosystem diversity, and resource availability) were assessed. For all operations, the enteric emissions were the largest contributor to climate change, human health, and ecosystem diversity. Manure emissions and handling was the largest contributor to the remaining midpoint impact categories, while mineral/supplement production and feed production were the largest effect on resource availability. There was little variability between scenarios except for the grassfed, where there was a substantial increase (37%) in the climate change impact. Reductions in climate change were realized when soil organic carbon accrual was considered. Possible mitigation options with respect to diet manipulation and management strategies were discussed, and can be used for guidance by producers, environmental practitioners, and policy makers.
Download or read book Livestock Production and the Functioning of Agricultural Ecosystems Volume I written by Gary S. Kleppel and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2021-08-24 with total page 131 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Rangeland Systems written by David D. Briske and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-04-12 with total page 664 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license. This book provides an unprecedented synthesis of the current status of scientific and management knowledge regarding global rangelands and the major challenges that confront them. It has been organized around three major themes. The first summarizes the conceptual advances that have occurred in the rangeland profession. The second addresses the implications of these conceptual advances to management and policy. The third assesses several major challenges confronting global rangelands in the 21st century. This book will compliment applied range management textbooks by describing the conceptual foundation on which the rangeland profession is based. It has been written to be accessible to a broad audience, including ecosystem managers, educators, students and policy makers. The content is founded on the collective experience, knowledge and commitment of 80 authors who have worked in rangelands throughout the world. Their collective contributions indicate that a more comprehensive framework is necessary to address the complex challenges confronting global rangelands. Rangelands represent adaptive social-ecological systems, in which societal values, organizations and capacities are of equal importance to, and interact with, those of ecological processes. A more comprehensive framework for rangeland systems may enable management agencies, and educational, research and policy making organizations to more effectively assess complex problems and develop appropriate solutions.
Download or read book Conservation Agriculture written by Muhammad Farooq and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-12-03 with total page 662 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conservation agriculture—consisting of four components including permanent soil cover, minimum soil disturbance, diversified crop rotations and integrated weed management—is considered the principal pathway to sustainable agriculture and the conservation of natural resources and the environment. Leading researchers in the field describe the basic principles of conservation agriculture, and synthesize recent advances and developments in conservation agriculture research. This book is a ready reference on conservation agriculture and reinforces the understanding for its utilization to develop environmentally sustainable and profitable food production systems. The book describes various elements of conservation agriculture; highlights the associated breeding and modeling efforts; analyses the experiences and challenges in conservation agriculture in different regions of the world; and proposes some pragmatic options and new areas of research in this very important area of agriculture.
Download or read book Agroecosystem Diversity written by Gilles Lemaire and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2018-10-08 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Agro-Ecosystem Diversity: Impact on Food Security and Environmental Quality presents cutting-edge exploration of developing novel farming systems and introduces landscape ecology to agronomy. It encompasses the broad range of links between agricultural development and ecological impact and how to limit the potential negative results. Presented in seven sections, each focusing on a specific challenge to sustaining diversity, the book provides insights toward the argument that by re-introducing diversity, it should be possible to maintain a high level of productivity of agro-ecosystems while also maintaining and/or restoring a satisfactory level of environment quality and biodiversity. Demonstrates that diversified agro-ecosystems can be intensified with environmental quality preserved, restored and enhanced Includes analysis of economic constraints leading to specialization of farms and regions and the social locking forces resisting to diversification of agro-ecosystems Presents a global vision of world agriculture and the tradeoff between a necessary increase in food production and restoring environment quality
Download or read book Tackling Climate Change Through Livestock written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2013 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Greenhouse gas emissions by the livestock sector could be cut by as much as 30 percent through the wider use of existing best practices and technologies. FAO conducted a detailed analysis of GHG emissions at multiple stages of various livestock supply chains, including the production and transport of animal feed, on-farm energy use, emissions from animal digestion and manure decay, as well as the post-slaughter transport, refrigeration and packaging of animal products. This report represents the most comprehensive estimate made to-date of livestocks contribution to global warming as well as the sectors potential to help tackle the problem. This publication is aimed at professionals in food and agriculture as well as policy makers.
Download or read book Livestock s Long Shadow written by Henning Steinfeld and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2006 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The assessment builds on the work of the Livestock, Environment and Development (LEAD) Initiative"--Pref.
Download or read book Energy Abstracts for Policy Analysis written by and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Critical Role of Animal Science Research in Food Security and Sustainability written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2015-03-31 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By 2050 the world's population is projected to grow by one-third, reaching between 9 and 10 billion. With globalization and expected growth in global affluence, a substantial increase in per capita meat, dairy, and fish consumption is also anticipated. The demand for calories from animal products will nearly double, highlighting the critical importance of the world's animal agriculture system. Meeting the nutritional needs of this population and its demand for animal products will require a significant investment of resources as well as policy changes that are supportive of agricultural production. Ensuring sustainable agricultural growth will be essential to addressing this global challenge to food security. Critical Role of Animal Science Research in Food Security and Sustainability identifies areas of research and development, technology, and resource needs for research in the field of animal agriculture, both nationally and internationally. This report assesses the global demand for products of animal origin in 2050 within the framework of ensuring global food security; evaluates how climate change and natural resource constraints may impact the ability to meet future global demand for animal products in sustainable production systems; and identifies factors that may impact the ability of the United States to meet demand for animal products, including the need for trained human capital, product safety and quality, and effective communication and adoption of new knowledge, information, and technologies. The agricultural sector worldwide faces numerous daunting challenges that will require innovations, new technologies, and new ways of approaching agriculture if the food, feed, and fiber needs of the global population are to be met. The recommendations of Critical Role of Animal Science Research in Food Security and Sustainability will inform a new roadmap for animal science research to meet the challenges of sustainable animal production in the 21st century.
Download or read book Mechanistic Modeling Life Cycle Assessment of Environmental Impacts of Beef Cattle Sheep Production written by Holland Christiana Dougherty and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As population and demand for animal products increase, livestock producers are under both social and economic pressure to intensify production to meet demand. Simultaneously, environmental impacts of livestock production, such as greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and irrigated water usage, are under increased public and regulatory scrutiny for their contributions to climate change and resource scarcity. One GHG under particular scrutiny is methane (CH4), which enters the atmosphere from both manure and enteric emissions by ruminants such as sheep and cattle. For livestock agriculture to continue to meet demand, the processes driving these environmental impacts must be understood and quantified so that impacts may be effectively mitigated. Quantitative models of animal biology can be used by researchers to quantify and analyze environmental impacts of livestock production on both animal-level and system-level scales. Mechanistic models model higher-level processes by explicitly representing the underlying structure of the system being modeled as an integration of lower-level processes. These mechanistic models can be used as both research tools to explore understanding of a current system, or to predict animal performance and environmental impacts. AusBeef is a mechanistic, dynamic model for predicting beef cattle performance, and which predicts enteric CH4 production based on ruminal hydrogen balance. The ability of AusBeef to predict enteric CH4 and gross energy intake was compared to that of the 2016 Beef NRC model, an empirical model of beef cattle production, and the Ruminant Nutrition System (RNS) a dynamic, mechanistic model (Tedeschi & Fox 2016). Overall, AusBeef performed most similarly to the empirical NRC model, and all models required further refinement to improve CH4 prediction on forage diets. Three sensitivity analysis methods, one local and two global, were then used to evaluate AusBeef’s behaviour on forage-based and concentrate-based diets for four methane-relevant outputs of interest. Different patterns of sensitivity were observed between forage-based and concentrate-based diets, but patterns were consistent within diet types. System-level models such as those used in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) can be mechanistic or empirical in nature, and are useful for evaluating the impacts of a specific production system, as well as to benchmark or evaluate environmental impacts on an industry level. Region-specific analysis of livestock emissions and resource usage helps to understand unique characteristics of a region’s livestock production systems and can be used to develop mitigation methods tailored to these specific circumstances. A cradle-to-farm gate LCA of the California sheep industry was conducted to evaluate the carbon and irrigated water footprints of five different meat sheep production systems. Enteric CH4 was the largest contributor to overall emissions, while irrigated pasture use was a major driver of irrigated water footprint. Sensitivity analysis showed that carbon footprint per kg market lamb was sensitive to ewe replacement rate and lambs produced per ewe, highlighting the importance of flock management strategies to overall sustainability. The present studies show the utility of animal-level and system-level models to evaluate the environmental impacts of different livestock production systems, as well as the usefulness of sensitivity analysis in identifying model drivers. These studies also suggest future directions for data collection and model development to help identify and target mitigation strategies for both beef and sheep production.
Download or read book Global Livestock Production Systems written by Timothy P. Robinson and published by Food & Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO). This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Informed livestock sector policy development and priority setting is heavily dependent on a good understanding of livestock production systems. In a collaborative effort between the Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Livestock Research Institute, stock has been taken of where we have come from in agricultural systems classification and mapping; the current state of the art; and the directions in which research and data collection efforts need to take in the future. The book also addresses issues relating to the intensity and scale of production, moving from what is done to how it is done. The intensification of production is an area of particular importance, for it is in the intensive systems that changes are occurring most rapidly and where most information is needed on the implications that intensification of production may have for livelihoods, poverty alleviation, animal diseases, public health and environmental outcomes. A series of case studies is provided, linking livestock production systems to rural livelihoods and poverty and examples of the application of livestock production system maps are drawn from livestock production, now and in the future; livestock's impact on the global environment; animal and public health; and livestock and livelihoods. This book provides a formal reference to Version 5 of the global livestock production systems map, and to revised estimates of the numbers of rural poor livestock keepers, by country and livestock production system.
Download or read book Farming Systems Research into the 21st Century The New Dynamic written by Ika Darnhofer and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-05-30 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Farming Systems Research has three core characteristics: it builds on systems thinking, it depends on the close collaboration between social and biophysical sciences, and it relies on participation to build co-learning processes. Farming Systems Research posits that to contribute towards sustainable rural development, both interdisciplinary collaborations and local actor engagement are needed. Together, they allow for changes in understanding and changes in practices. This book gives an overview of the insights generated in 20 years of Farming Systems Research. It retraces the emergence and development of Farming Systems Research in Europe, summarises the state-of-the-art for key areas, and provides an outlook on new explorations, especially those tackling the dynamic nature of farming systems and their interaction with the natural environment and the context of action.
Download or read book OECD FAO Agricultural Outlook 2019 2028 written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2019-07-08 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Agricultural Outlook 2019-2028 is a collaborative effort of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. It brings together the commodity, policy and country expertise of both organisations as well ...
Download or read book Mitigation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Livestock Production written by Pierre J. Gerber and published by Food & Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO). This book was released on 2013 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The current analysis was conducted to evaluate the potential of nutritional, manure and animal husbandry practices for mitigating methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) - i.e. non-carbon dioxide (CO2) - GHG emissions from livestock production. These practices were categorized into enteric CH4, manure management and animal husbandry mitigation practices. Emphasis was placed on enteric CH4 mitigation practices for ruminant animals (only in vivo studies were considered) and manure mitigation practices for both ruminant and monogastric species. Over 900 references were reviewed; simulation and life cycle assessment analyses were generally excluded
Download or read book Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2010-07-25 with total page 598 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last 20 years, there has been a remarkable emergence of innovations and technological advances that are generating promising changes and opportunities for sustainable agriculture, yet at the same time the agricultural sector worldwide faces numerous daunting challenges. Not only is the agricultural sector expected to produce adequate food, fiber, and feed, and contribute to biofuels to meet the needs of a rising global population, it is expected to do so under increasingly scarce natural resources and climate change. Growing awareness of the unintended impacts associated with some agricultural production practices has led to heightened societal expectations for improved environmental, community, labor, and animal welfare standards in agriculture. Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century assesses the scientific evidence for the strengths and weaknesses of different production, marketing, and policy approaches for improving and reducing the costs and unintended consequences of agricultural production. It discusses the principles underlying farming systems and practices that could improve the sustainability. It also explores how those lessons learned could be applied to agriculture in different regional and international settings, with an emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa. By focusing on a systems approach to improving the sustainability of U.S. agriculture, this book can have a profound impact on the development and implementation of sustainable farming systems. Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century serves as a valuable resource for policy makers, farmers, experts in food production and agribusiness, and federal regulatory agencies.
Download or read book Review of the Draft Fourth National Climate Assessment written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2018-06-18 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change poses many challenges that affect society and the natural world. With these challenges, however, come opportunities to respond. By taking steps to adapt to and mitigate climate change, the risks to society and the impacts of continued climate change can be lessened. The National Climate Assessment, coordinated by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, is a mandated report intended to inform response decisions. Required to be developed every four years, these reports provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date evaluation of climate change impacts available for the United States, making them a unique and important climate change document. The draft Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) report reviewed here addresses a wide range of topics of high importance to the United States and society more broadly, extending from human health and community well-being, to the built environment, to businesses and economies, to ecosystems and natural resources. This report evaluates the draft NCA4 to determine if it meets the requirements of the federal mandate, whether it provides accurate information grounded in the scientific literature, and whether it effectively communicates climate science, impacts, and responses for general audiences including the public, decision makers, and other stakeholders.
