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Stephen

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Re: Low GHG Meat
« Reply #50 on: August 14, 2019, 04:21:38 PM »
Chickens.  You don't necessarily have to feed them grain.  They can scratch around and get a lot of their nutrition from grubs and insects.

Obviously I'm not talking about factory farming here, but it wasn't that long ago, my own childhood in fact, when every family I knew had chickens in a pen in their backyard.

The saying, "running around like a chook with its head cut off" has real meaning for me because, after my father had beheaded the poor chook chosen for Sunday dinner, it was my job to catch the bloody thing.
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TerryM

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Re: Low GHG Meat
« Reply #51 on: August 14, 2019, 10:00:18 PM »
Chickens.  You don't necessarily have to feed them grain.  They can scratch around and get a lot of their nutrition from grubs and insects.

Obviously I'm not talking about factory farming here, but it wasn't that long ago, my own childhood in fact, when every family I knew had chickens in a pen in their backyard.

The saying, "running around like a chook with its head cut off" has real meaning for me because, after my father had beheaded the poor chook chosen for Sunday dinner, it was my job to catch the bloody thing.


Stopped at a small orchard in Northern California that used free range chickens to keep insects off the trees and fruit. Free chicken feed, healthier chickens I'd assume from the exercise of catching their own food and pesticide free apples.


Hope his business is prospering - the apples were good & I didn't notice that they were priced any higher.
Terry

Stephen

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Re: Low GHG Meat
« Reply #52 on: August 15, 2019, 12:46:04 AM »
It's seems to me that, rather than farming and eating insects as food, we should feed the insects to poultry and eat the chickens, ducks and turkeys. 
The ice was here, the ice was there,   
The ice was all around:
It crack'd and growl'd, and roar'd and howl'd,   
Like noises in a swound!
  Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Low GHG Meat
« Reply #53 on: August 15, 2019, 12:48:54 AM »
It's seems to me that, rather than farming and eating insects as food, we should feed the insects to poultry and eat the chickens, ducks and turkeys.
That is less efficient, and maybe not as healthy.

SteveMDFP

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Re: Low GHG Meat
« Reply #54 on: August 15, 2019, 02:06:26 AM »
It's seems to me that, rather than farming and eating insects as food, we should feed the insects to poultry and eat the chickens, ducks and turkeys.

That idea is just fowl.

DrTskoul

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Re: Low GHG Meat
« Reply #55 on: August 15, 2019, 02:46:21 AM »
Turducken

TerryM

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Re: Low GHG Meat
« Reply #56 on: August 15, 2019, 11:37:02 AM »
Kind of like becoming vegan by eating the cow after the cow eats the grass?


A "Vegan Once Removed"


It works for me!
Terry

Sciguy

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Re: Low GHG Meat
« Reply #57 on: October 09, 2019, 12:26:24 AM »
Adaptive multi-paddock (AMP)grazing can reduce the carbon footprint of cattle grazing and even turn grasslands where the grazing occurs into carbon sinks.

https://www.popsci.com/carbon-neutral-beef-grass/

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Beef has become one of the central villains of the climate crisis. Many environmentalists limit their cow consumption or eat entirely from lower levels of the food chain. But though it's true that global figures on beef's carbon hoofprint are worrisome, they perhaps also gloss over the complex system that these cows are a part of. There are many, many ways of producing burgers and steaks—and some ranchers argue cattle can actually be a force for good. In fact, cattle might play a surprising role in mitigating climate change. If done right, grazing can heal grasslands and enable them to stow away more carbon from the atmosphere, even becoming carbon-negative systems.

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Often during the pasture stage, cattle are free to roam about entire ranches, nibbling on whatever patch of grass they like, whenever they want. But especially with large numbers of animals, this continuous grazing can erode the grassland ecosystem. Uninterrupted trampling can reduce a once-vibrant prairie to patches of scraggly, weedy plants and bare, compacted soil. And with that erosion and loss of plants goes the ability of the soil to store carbon in organic matter, a key function of grassy regions.

This bleak picture might lead you to question beef’s sustainability. But the grazer-grassland relationship is not inherently destructive; native ruminants and plants evolved together, and they have a mutually beneficial relationship in natural ecosystems. Millions of bison once roamed the United States, and they instinctively moved between pastures, giving plants and soil a chance to recover.

If done carefully, Kebreab says livestock grazing can mimic this natural function. Additionally, he notes, "the thing that people might not consider is that a lot of these cattle occupy land that's considered to be marginal—you can't really do anything apart from growing grass." So, when considering the amount of land used to produce beef, which many environmentalists cite as a negative impact, it's important to realize that that grazing land can support way more than cows. As long as the operation takes places on a natural rangeland—as opposed to the destructive practice of chopping down a forest to produce pasture—there's potential to foster a healthy ecosystem and store carbon in addition to producing beef.

Rotational grazing, including the AMP approach Ranney uses, seeks to mimic those historic herds of bison and other grazers that once trod the land, creating a microcosm of this ecological relationship. In it, a ranch is divided with fencing to create many smaller paddocks. The herd will chow down on one small area for as little as a few hours before ranchers move them to a new spot. Then, the mowed-down spot gets a long rest, usually at least a couple months. "This adaptive multi-paddock grazing is a way to manage [cattle] in a way that emulates large native herds of wildlife," says Steven Apfelbaum, an ecological consultant with Applied Ecological Services, Inc.

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Managed grazing can transform a degraded area, a net carbon source, into a net carbon sink, according to Richard Teague, a range ecologist at Texas A&M University. Based on data he collected "across the fence" between Texas ranches, he calculated that AMP grazing could store a ton of carbon per hectare of land per year in a site that previously was continuously grazed. For wetter climates where plants grow faster, that rate is likely even higher.

Sciguy

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Re: Low GHG Meat
« Reply #58 on: March 09, 2020, 07:12:53 PM »
An update on regenerative farming to restore grasslands which act as carbon sinks.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/06/africa/agriculture-regenerative-farming-climate-crisis-intl/index.html

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Put down that veggie burger. These farmers say their cows can solve the climate crisis

By David McKenzie and Brent Swails, CNN

Updated 6:16 AM ET, Sat March 7, 2020

Quote
Calls for plant-based diets to save the planet from the climate crisis are growing louder. But there is another, quieter, revolution reshaping the agricultural world. Farmers like Slabbert and their supporters say that what people eat is not as important as how they farm. They believe cattle and cropland could help save the planet.

"I have become a steward of this land and the cows are the key," Slabbert says.

Mimicking the migration

Before settlers arrived with their guns and wagons, this part of what is now South Africa's Free State province was an immense grassland. More than 30 species of grass anchored the rolling plains; fodder for millions of migrating antelope.

Over time, the wild herds were shot out and much of the plains became corn and potato fields.
There is still plenty of grassland here, or veld, as South Africans call it. Farmers such as Slabbert are looking back to those immense herds to recreate the natural cycle.

"What we are doing is trying to mimic nature," he says, explaining that 200 years ago, huge herds of animals would have moved over this veld, avoiding predators in their tightly packed groups."

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Conventional thinking says that cows are bad for climate change. After all, livestock contribute to around 14% of all global emissions. Researchers at UC Davis estimate that a single cow can belch around 220 pounds -- roughly 100 kilograms -- of methane each year. There are more than a billion cows on the planet, so that is a lot of (greenhouse) gas.

But cows didn't evolve to sit in feedlots getting fat. Their wild relatives were out in the grassland in large numbers, just like on Slabbert's farm.

Researchers at Texas A&M University led by Professor Richard Teague found that even moderately effective grazing systems put more carbon in the soil than the gasses cattle emit. Around 30% to 40% of the earth's surface is natural grassland, and Teague says the potential for food security is immense.

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The key to climate sustainable agriculture is the soil, because soil has an extraordinary ability to store carbon. There is more than three times as much carbon in the world's soils than in the atmosphere, and scientists say that with better management, agricultural soils could absorb much more carbon in the future.

Even a change of a few percentage points would make a huge difference to the battle against the climate crisis. There is an upper limit to how much carbon soils can carry, but it can take decades to get to that point.

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Many farmers and scientists say that the chemical revolution came at a cost and they want to bring the soil back to life. They believe that living soil harnesses sustainable yields and will help the planet.

And to do that, they must combine cattle with crops.

In North America and in South Africa commercial agriculture, crop farming and cattle ranching are generally done by different farmers on different land.

The key to regenerative farming is combining the two. Slabbert never ploughs his corn fields or leaves them fallow, so he is able to keep the carbon in the soil. The corn is tightly packed -- he doesn't need to get in there to spray.

In winter, his cattle herds will come here too and eat the residual corn, depositing natural fertilizer as they go. Slabbert has reduced his fertilizer and chemical input costs drastically, but his yields stay strong.

Sciguy

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Re: Low GHG Meat
« Reply #59 on: July 14, 2020, 12:55:27 AM »
Another new feed additive has been found to decrease methane emissions from dairy cattle by up to 40% while increasing butterfat levels and not affecting the milk yield.

https://www.dairyherd.com/article/feed-additive-reduces-methane-emissions-40-percent-dairy-cows

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Feed Additive Reduces Methane Emissions Up to 40 Percent In Dairy Cows
Jim Dickrell
June 25, 2020

A feeding trial using 3-nitrooxypropanol (3-NOP) reduced enteric methane emissions in dairy cows 22 to 40 percent in a short-term study done at Pennsylvania State University. The average level of methane reduction was 31 percent.

nanning

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Re: Low GHG Meat
« Reply #60 on: July 14, 2020, 05:13:50 AM »
Animals are not machines to be upgraded. Still trying the 'hand of God'? -> Further degradation of life on Earth. Where has 'natural selection' gone? Oh. Of course, many think 'human selection' is much better  >:( (*cough* unintended consequences; no respect for other lifeforms; just exploit, dominate and make faulty).
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Low GHG Meat
« Reply #61 on: July 20, 2020, 09:15:10 PM »
The inconvenient truth about Burger King’s ‘reduced methane’ Whopper
Quote
With 100 grams of lemongrass added to their feed everyday, the team saw reductions of up to 33 percent. Again, it's unpublished research, but you can read a summary of the project here.

But there’s one major issue to note here. While Burger King is pushing that the beef has 33 percent fewer methane emissions in their advertising, that number is inherently misleading. If you look at the fine print (which, to be fair, is readily available online), that reduction only applies to the last three to four months of cows’ lives, which is when they are on feedlots, fattening up on a high-calorie feed prior to their slaughter. But crucially, more than 75 percent of their lifetime methane emissions occur prior to the feedlot stage. The average beef cow is between 18 and 24 months old at slaughter, so they’ve had many months to produce burps.

Taking that into account, the lemongrass diet only reduces their lifetime methane emissions by about three percent, Dan Rejto, director of food and agriculture at the environmental think tank the Breakthrough Institute, points out. If you include processing and transportation of beef, that number is even lower. ...
https://www.popsci.com/story/environment/burger-king-reduced-methane-whopper-debunk/
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

GoSouthYoungins

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Re: Low GHG Meat
« Reply #62 on: July 21, 2020, 12:51:47 AM »
Get goats. Grow grass. Make more goats. Eat the males. Milk the females.
big time oops

Iain

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Re: Low GHG Meat
« Reply #63 on: December 02, 2020, 01:57:02 PM »
"Singapore approves lab-grown 'chicken' meat"

"....it is much more expensive to produce lab-grown meat than plant-based products."

"The cost has since come down but it will still be as expensive as premium chicken. "

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55155741
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