Better breeding could reduce cattle emissions as beef lags behind

Better breeding has the power to lower greenhouse gas emissions by improving efficiencies per unit of meat produced, a panel of agricultural scientists said.

The pig and poultry industries have already advanced a long way in this, but there is still room for improvement in the dairy sector (which accounts for 50 per cent of beef produced in the UK) and beef sector.

Prof Eileen Wall, head of research at Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), said: “Fifty per cent of [overall livestock] production gains since World War II have come from genetics, but not so much in the beef sector.

“About 70 per cent of emissions reductions could come from efficiency [techniques] we already know about.”

Breeding values for feed efficiencies in dairy and Limousin beef cattle are expected to be made available next year, said Prof Mike Coffey, professor of livestock informatics at SRUC. This would enable farmers to select cows which produced fewer emissions.

Data for dairy cattle is being compiled at Crichton Royal Farm, Dumfries, while beef cattle data is being researched by AHDB and Defra. Scientists were speaking at the Media Science Centre, London, at an event about the environmental impact of meat production.

Prof Wall said: “The question over meat is complicated, because it is part of the overall food and farming system, so there is not a silver bullet to solve this.”