Exploring Rotational Grazing and Crossbreeding as Options for Beef Production to Reduce GHG Emissions and Feed-Food Competition through Farm-Level Bio-Economic Modeling

Abstract

In the context of a growing population, beef production is expected to reduce its consumption of human-edible food and its contribution to global warming. We hypothesize that implementing the innovations of fast rotational grazing and redesigning existing production systems using crossbreeding and sexing may reduce these impacts. In this research, the bio-economic model FarmDyn is used to assess the impact of such innovations on farm profit, workload, global warming potential, and feed-food competition. The innovations are tested in a Belgian system composed of a Belgian Blue breeder and a fattener farm, another system where calves raised in a French suckler cow farm are fattened in a farm in Italy, and third, a German dairy farm that fattens its male calves. The practice of fast rotational grazing with a herd of dairy-to-beef crossbred males is found to have the best potential for greenhouse gas reduction and a reduction of the use of human-edible food when by-products are available. Crossbreeding with early-maturing beef breeds shows a suitable potential to produce grass-based beef with little feed-food competition if the stocking rate considers the grassland yield potential. The results motivate field trials in order to validate the findings.

Keywords: beef; climate change mitigation; crossbreeding; fast rotational grazing; feed-food competition; innovations.

Figure 1

Overview of the beef production system considered in the study and the associated scenarios (baseline, fast rotational grazing (FRG), and system redesign (SR)). In the SR scenario, crossbreeding (CB) and sexing (SX) are applied in dairy farms. The farms of interest, labeled a in Belgium, b in France, and c in Germany (in blue), is the farm in which the tested innovation take place. Farm-level indicators, such as the profit, are computed for this particular farm.

Figure 2

Dry matter, metabolizable energy and crude protein yield profiles for continuously (CG) and rotationally grazed (FRG) pastures in the three production systems.

Figure 3

System boundaries of the analyzed beef production systems. Source: adapted from [23]. ^a in the German system breeding and fattening are integrated in one farm sparing animal transport. ^b milk is considered a co-product on the dairy farm of the German system and in the system redesign scenario in Belgium.

Figure 4

(A) GWP per kg of carcass and its different sources for the baseline (Base) and in the fast rotational grazing (FRG) and system redesign (SR) scenarios applied to the Belgian (BE), French–Italian (FR-IT), and German (GE) case studies. (B) Work time per kg of carcass and its different components.

Figure 5

Results of sustainability evaluation of the scenarios supported by the sensitivity analysis for the baseline (Base) and the fast rotational grazing (FRG) and system redesign (SR) scenarios applied to the Belgian (BE), French–Italian (FR-IT), and German (GE) case studies. The variables studied are from top to bottom: the global warming potential for the production of 1 kg of beef carcass, the net human-edible protein efficiency, the work time to produce 1 kg of beef carcass, and the farm profit.

Figure 6

Relation between the net efficiency of HEP production and the stocking rate in livestock unit (LU) per ha of permanent grassland (PG) in the farm of interest for the tested scenarios for the baseline (Base) and in the fast rotational grazing (FRG) and system redesign (SR) scenarios applied to the Belgian (BE), French–Italian (FR-IT), and German (GE) case studies.