Interesting article - water and climate change

[blackpowder]

Insects also are very efficient feed converters.
Cricket farms convert grain to protein cheap?

Let the buffalo roam the poor land I guess.

[grassfarmer]

Grassy my wife wrote her thesis on methane and co2 emissions from livestock...

Cattle emit more co2 they don't themselves "sink" any.

But as a tool properly used to manage the land they can have a remarkable effect increasing sequestration of CO2. Something else that is included in the research implying "cattle are bad for the planet" are the emissions naturally produced by decaying forage on grasslands/rangelands - yet this is blamed on the cow whether there is one grazing the land or not. So if you decide cows are bad, get rid of them all, you are still left with these emissions. You'll also have emissions from wild ungulates whose population would explode in most areas of grazing land/bush if you remove the cows. Would you get rid of all the wildlife too?
It's a very complex issue and one where the decisions have to be carefully weighed based on a large number of intricacies.

[biglentil]

Lol give it up already Grassy. No one believes that your magic cows sequester carbon dioxide. Wildlife are not fed and watered in a feedlot all winter long.

[grassfarmer]

Lol give it up already Grassy. No one believes that your magic cows sequester carbon dioxide. Wildlife are not fed and watered in a feedlot all winter long.

Lol, you're the one who should give up while you're behind. So now it's feeding and watering in a feedlot that causes the cattle emissions? I'll be fine then - mine are never in the corrals apart from sorting them. So what do the wildlife exhale?

[biglentil]

Look at the chart grassy 1kg of beef production contributes 27kg of C02. Its not just feedlots its every human activity thats involved in raising domesticated livestock that contributes to the C02 levels. From pounding fence posts and hanging wire, pumping water, bailing and hauling feed, corral panels you use to sort, and lets not even get into the packing and storage..... My lentils do not consume energy and exhale C02 all year long just to move around and stay warm. Wildlife does not sequester nor contribute its zero sum.

You are a big offender no way around it.

[Hamloc]

Due to all of our forests and our large land base in Canada we are a net sequester of C02, something we are not credited for. We should be selling carbon credits to they world instead of paying a carbon tax. Unfortunately Grassfarmer you come across as an arrogant left leaning elitist, I fully appreciate that you do a very good job of managing your grass based beef system. You seem to feel those of us that object to a carbon tax are uneducated misinformed buffoons. Trudeau openly admits he has done no economic analysis, he just says it has to be done. I also do not believe I could cut 80% of my GHG emissions from my cow herd without drastic herd reduction, Grassfarmer if you prefer to pretend you can all the more power to you.

[grassfarmer]

Look at the chart grassy 1kg of beef production contributes 27kg of C02

Yeah , and acknowledge the figures from the research work in SK showing that for every kg of cattle emissions between 17 and 39Kgs are sequestered. Your combine or sprayer can't do that, nor can your lentil crop.

Wildlife does not sequester nor contribute its zero sum.

Really? it's ZERO SENSE more like. Every living thing is emitting CO2 - humans, plants, livestock and wildlife. How much their activities contribute to sequestration varies but to argue that wildlife neither sequester nor contribute is obviously false.[/QUOTE]

Unfortunately Grassfarmer you come across as an arrogant left leaning elitist....You seem to feel those of us that object to a carbon tax are uneducated misinformed buffoons.

I can't control how my posts are perceived by others, I'm just presenting my argument to the best of my ability as you are allowed to in a democracy. Sorry if that offends you.

[blackpowder]

I think theres a lot to be said for grasses methods.
The trick for him will be to convince, and differentiate himself with the new power elite.
I see the possible future of beef for a % of NA market. Until its commoditized of course.

[Klause]

Field crops sequester roughly 3 to 5 t/ha/yr of carbon.



This includes those used by livestock.


Still haven't explained your premise... cattle require transportation meat requires cooled shipping... cooled marketing and usually far more carbon intensive transportation methods.


Grain production is far far more carbon neutral... you're forgetting how much co2 is sequestered by zero till.


And we don't use very much fuel per acre these days anymore....

[Klause]

Plus your wildlife argument... if humans didn't exist and thus we didn't have agriculture there would be large amounts of wildlife yes. .. but the argument these idiot climate change yuppies use is humans are causing the issue...



Circular reasoning eh?


I'm not saying the climate isn't changing.... I'm saying humans have very little to do with it.

[grassfarmer]

Field crops sequester roughly 3 to 5 t/ha/yr of carbon.

That's awesome Klause, shame you didn't read this link I posted earlier in the thread.

[URL="http://holisticmanagement.ca/uncategorized/solving-climate-change-with-holistic-management/"]http://http://holisticmanagement.ca/uncategorized/solving-climate-change-with-holistic-management/[/URL]

The three outfits I quoted in SK that sequestered 17-39kgs for every kg of cattle emissions sequestered 22.8T, 42.4T and 48.5T per hectare/per year respectively. Roughly 10 times grain farming - that's why what these guys is doing is so important. Don't listen to me though - go visit them, they are your fellow farmers, fellow SK people.

[TSIPP]

This is a CP from GRASSFARMERS link, sounds like we all need cows around.

Cattle do contribute to greenhouse gases. Two recent studies: Basarab in April of 2012 and Beauchemin in April of 2010 concluded that each kilogram of carcass produced emits 19.5 to 22 kg of C02-equivalent Greenhouse Gasses (Methane emissions included in that figure). Proper grazing management, however, stimulates growth and carbon sequestration, offsetting the emmisions. These three farms illustrate this point:
•Hjertaas’ near Redvers, Sask. produced 105 kg/ha of live animal. This amount of production emitted 1350 kg of C02 per hectare. Their land sequestered 22,800 kg/ha C02 per year. For every kilogram emitted 17 kilograms of C02 were sequestered.
•McNeil’s at Alameda, Sask. produced 134 kg/ha of live animal. Those animals emitted 1680 kg/ha of C02. Their healthy rangeland sequestered 42,400 kg/ha of C02 per year. For every kilogram emitted 25 kilograms were sequestered.
•Corcoran’s at Langbank, Sask.produced 96kg/ha of live animal. That production level emitted 1231kg/ha of C02. Their land sequestered 48,500 kg/ha of C02 per year. For every kilogram emitted 39 kilograms were sequestered

[Klause]

Those numbers are completely impossible.


Why? because apparently cows eating grass... well, the grass... somehow manages to sequester (which is the wrong term. Plants convert CO2 into sugars, they don't sequester it) more than 3x the highest possible dry matter yield.


These numbers were pulled out of somebody's behind.


A corn crop only uses 5t/ha of carbon. Sugar cane around 6.


Yet somehow grass does 5x that? Give me a break.


Also, their math completely forgets about the CO2 produced when fencing, when butchering (cooling requires power), transportation of the finished meat, transportation of the animal....


Raising cattle isn't having cows running around a grass field all year....

Do you drive pickup trucks to check your cows? Horses? quads?


Their numbers for production from the cow come from a study I remember reading, and only relates to direct emissions from a cow.


Also, 134Kg/ha max production... which dead weight would be 50%, so 70kg/ha of meat. One ha of lentils produces 2,000 kilograms Peas up to 4,000. Same for wheat.


Proves my point... cattle are extremely inefficient from a low footprint/high production / feed the world standpoint.... Grasslands would be just fine without the cows there, as, as you say, the deer would do the cows' job anyway... And you wouldn't have any transportation, fencing, or herding emissions.



Again, I love beef. I love our cattle producers, and I'm not attacking them... I'm simply stating that your continued attack on agriculture... and all this talk about human-caused global warming is kind of hypocritical coming from a cattle farmer.

[TSIPP]

KLAUSE, I'm not trying to pick a fight with anyone but we are in Saskatchewan and the average temperature is about +two C. a lot of meat wont need cooling

most of my land is impossible to crop and the land you can most people wont.

most food is transported anyway.

most of my fences are at least thirty to sixty years old, I'm not sure how to place a carbon footprint on them

yes I have a pickup I drive to town with, about two or three times a month, I do use the quad to check cows

as for the point you proved, I missed it but I did get a chuckle about you loving cowboys

[biglentil]

We all love beef here but can someone please explain how cows sequester carbon? Preferrably grassy!