title: Environmental impacts of beef production: Review of challenges and perspectives for durability.
abstract: Beef makes a substantial contribution to food security, providing protein, energy and also essential micro-nutrients to human populations. Rumination allows cattle - and other ruminant species - to digest fibrous feeds that cannot be directly consumed by humans and thus to make a net positive contribution to food balances. This contribution is of particular importance in marginal areas, where agro-ecological conditions and weak infrastructures do not offer much alternative. It is also valuable where cattle convert crop residues and by-products into edible products and where they contribute to soil fertility through their impact on nutrients and organic matter cycles. At the same time, environmental sustainability issues are acute. They chiefly relate to the low efficiency of beef cattle in converting natural resources into edible products. Water use, land use, biomass appropriation and greenhouse gas emissions are for example typically higher per unit of edible product in beef systems than in any other livestock systems, even when corrected for nutritional quality. This particularly causes environmental pressure when production systems are specialized towards the delivery of edible products, in large volumes. The paper discusses environmental challenges at global level, recognizing the large diversity of systems. Beef production is faced with a range of additional sustainability challenges, such as changing consumer perceptions, resilience to climate change, animal health and inequities in access to land and water resources. Entry-points for environmental sustainability improvement are discussed within this broader development context.
authors.affiliation: Animal Production and Health Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Italy; Animal Production Systems group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands. Electronic address: p.gerber@worldbank.org.
authors.forename: Pierre J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Gerber
authors.affiliation: Animal Production and Health Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Italy.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mottet
authors.affiliation: Animal Production and Health Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Italy.
authors.forename: Carolyn I
authors.initials: CI
authors.lastname: Opio
authors.affiliation: Animal Production and Health Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Italy.
authors.forename: Alessandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Falcucci
authors.affiliation: Animal Production and Health Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Italy; INRA-AgroParisTech, UMR 1048 SAD APT, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Félix
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Teillard
mesh_terms: D000822:Animal Husbandry; D000818:Animals; D002417:Cattle; D004777:Environment; D005523:Food Supply; D017752:Greenhouse Effect; D006801:Humans; D038622:Internationality; D000067936:Natural Resources; D000069466:Red Meat
keywords: Cattle; Feedlots; Mitigation; Natural resource use; Production systems; Sustainability