Impact of Climate Change on Livestock Production: A Review

Infectious Diseases, Livestock, and Climate: A Vicious Cycle?

Climate change poses formidable challenge to the development of livestock sector in India. The anticipated rise in temperature between 2.3°c and 4.8°c over the entire country together with increased precipitation resulting from climate change is likely to aggravate the heat stress in dairy animals, adversely affecting their productive and reproductive performance, and hence reducing the total area where high yielding dairy cattle can be economically reared. Given the vulnerability of India to rise in sea level, the impact of increased intensity of extreme events on the livestock sector would be large and devastating for the low-income rural areas. The predicted negative impact of climate change on Indian agriculture would also adversely affect livestock production by aggravating the feed and fodder shortages. The livestock sector which will be a sufferer of climate change is itself a large source of methane emissions, an important greenhouse gas. In India, although the emission rate per animal is much lower than the developed countries, due to vast livestock population the total annual methane emissions are about 9–10 Tg from enteric fermentation and animal wastes. Other direct or indirect effect such as feed resources, water resources and health contributed significantly to the change in production pattern in India`s livestock industry that support more than 70% of rural populace. It is suggested that strong and sound policies to be implemented to preserve local indigenous breeds of livestock, improvement of pasture, water resource management, research and development would mitigate the monumental consequences of climate change on livestock in India.

Climate change poses formidable challenge to the development of livestock sector in India. The anticipated rise in temperature between 2.3 and 4.8°C over the entire country together with increased precipitation resulting from climate change is likely to aggravate the heat stress in dairy animals, adversely affecting their productive and reproductive performance, and hence reducing the total area where high yielding dairy cattle can be economically reared. Given the vulnerability of India to rise in sea level, the impact of increased intensity of extreme events on the livestock sector would be large and devastating for the low-income rural areas. The predicted negative impact of climate change on Indian agriculture would also adversely affect livestock production by aggravating the feed and fodder shortages. The livestock sector which will be a sufferer of climate change is itself a large source of methane emissions, an important greenhouse gas. In India, although the emission rate per animal is much lower than the developed countries, due to vast livestock population the total annual methane emissions are about 9–10 Tg from enteric fermentation and animal wastes.

1. Introduction to Concepts of Climate Change Impact on Livestock and its Adaptation and Mitigation.- Part 1: Green House Gas Emission and Climate Change.- 2. Greenhouse Gas, Climate Change and Carbon Sequestration: Overview and General Principles.- 3. Contribution of Agriculture Sector to Climate Change.- Part 2: Climate change impact on Livestock.- 4. Impact of climate change on livestock production and reproduction.- 5. Thermal stress alters post-absorptive metabolism during pre- and postnatal development.- 6. Climate change and water availability for livestock: Impact on both quality and quantity.- 7. Impact of climate change on forage availability for livestock.- 8. Impact of climate change on livestock disease occurrences.- 9. Adaptive mechanisms of livestock to changing climate.- Part 3: Livestock role in climate change.- 10. Global Warming: Role of Livestock.- 11. Methane emission from enteric fermentation: Methanogenesis and Fermentation.- 12. Enteric Methane Emission under Different Feeding System.- 13. Estimation methodologies for enteric methane emission in ruminants.- 14. Metagenomic approaches in understanding the rumen function and establishing the rumen microbial diversity.- 15. Opportunities and Challenges for Carbon Trading from Livestock Sector.- Part 4: Methane mitigation strategies in livestock.- 16. Manipulation of rumen microbial eco-system for reducing enteric methane emission in livestock.- 17. Reducing enteric methane emission using plant secondary metabolites.- 18. Ration balancing - A practical approach for reducing methanogenesis in tropical feeding systems.- 19. Alternate H2 Sink for Reducing Rumen Methanogenesis.- 20. GHG emission from livestock manure and its mitigation strategies.- 21. Modelling of GHGs in livestock farms and its significance.- Part 5: Adaptation strategies to improve livestock production under changing climate.- 22. Overview on adaptation, mitigation and amelioration strategies to improve livestock production under the changing climatic scenario.- 23. Shelter design for different livestock from climate change perspective.- 24. Strategies to improve livestock reproduction under the changing climate scenario.- 25. Strategies to improve livestock genetic resources to counter climate change impact.- Part 6: Research and Development Priorities.- 26. Climate change impact on livestock sector- Visioning 2025.- 27. Conclusions and Researchable Priorities.

An assessment of GHG emissions from small ruminants in comparison with GHG emissions from large ruminants and monogastric livestock

Estimation of methane and nitrous oxide emission from livestock and poultry in China during 1949–2003

Human demand for livestock products has increased rapidly during the past few decades largely due to dietary transition and population growth, with significant impact on climate and the environment. The contribution of ruminant livestock to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has been investigated extensively at various scales from regional to global, but the long-term trend, regional variation and drivers of methane (CH4 ) emission remain unclear. In this study, we use Intergovernmental Panelon Climate Change (IPCC) Tier II guidelines to quantify the evolution of CH4 emissions from ruminant livestock during 1890-2014. We estimate that total CH4 emissions in 2014 was 97.1 million tonnes (MT) CH4 or 2.72 Gigatonnes (Gt) CO2 -eq (1 MT = 1012 g, 1 Gt = 1015 g) from ruminant livestock, which accounted for 47%-54% of all non-CO2 GHG emissions from the agricultural sector. Our estimate shows that CH4 emissions from the ruminant livestock had increased by 332% (73.6 MT CH4 or 2.06 Gt CO2 -eq) since the 1890s. Our results further indicate that livestock sector in drylands had 36% higher emission intensity (CH4 emissions/km2 ) compared to that in nondrylands in 2014, due to the combined effect of higher rate of increase in livestock population and low feed quality. We also find that the contribution of developing regions (Africa, Asia and Latin America) to the total CH4 emissions had increased from 51.7% in the 1890s to 72.5% in the 2010s. These changes were driven by increases in livestock numbers (LU units) by up to 121% in developing regions, but decreases in livestock numbers and emission intensity (emission/km2 ) by up to 47% and 32%, respectively, in developed regions. Our results indicate that future increases in livestock production would likely contribute to higher CH4 emissions, unless effective strategies to mitigate GHG emissions in livestock system are implemented.

Methane emissions along biomethane and biogas supply chains are underestimated

The dairy Carbon Offset Scenario Tool (COST) was developed to explore the influence of various abatement strategies on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for Australian dairy farms. COST is a static spreadsheet-based tool that uses Australian GHG inventory methodologies, algorithms and emission factors to estimate carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide emissions of a dairy farm system. One of the key differences between COST and other inventory-based dairy GHG emissions calculators is the ability to explore the effect of reducing total farm emissions on farm income, assuming the strategy was compliant with Kyoto rules for carbon offsets. COST provides ten abatement strategies across the four broad theme areas of diet manipulation, herd and breeding management, feedbase management and waste management. Each abatement strategy contains four sections; two sections for data entry (baseline farm data specific to the strategy explored and strategy-specific variables) and two sections for results (milk production results and GHG/economic-related results). Key sensitive variables for each strategy, identified from prior research, and prices for milk production and carbon offsets are adjusted through up/down buttons, which allows users to quickly explore the impact of these variables on farm emissions and profitability. For example, if the cost to implement an abatement strategy is doubled, what carbon offset income would be required to negate this additional cost? Results are presented as changes in carbon offset income, strategy implementation cost, additional milk production income and net farm income on a per annum and on a per GHG emissions intensity of milk production basis. COST currently contains a comprehensive range of strategies for GHG abatement, although some strategies are still in development. As new technologies or farm management practices leading to a reduction in GHG emission become available, these too will be incorporated into COST. To date, two dairy-specific abatement methodologies have been legislated as part of Australia’s commitment to reducing on-farm GHG emissions through it’s the carbon offset scheme, the Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) and are incorporated into COST. These are the ‘Destruction of methane generated from dairy manure in covered anaerobic ponds’ and the ‘Methodology for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in milking cows through feeding dietary additives’. As an example, we explored the mitigation option Replace supplements with a source of dietary fats (reflecting the second above-mentioned CFI legislated abatement strategy) as feeding a diet higher in dietary fats has been shown to reduce enteric methane emissions per unit of feed intake. A 400 milking herd was fed a baseline diet of 2.6% dietary fat. By replacing grain with hominy meal, at a rate of 5.0 kg dry matter/ cow per day for 90 days during the 3 summer months, the summer diet fat concentration was increased to 6.4%. Enteric methane emissions were reduced by 40 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (t CO 2 e) per annum for the farm. Waste methane and nitrous oxide emissions were also reduced by 0.5 and 1.6 t CO 2 e/annum, respectively. However, as reductions from these two sources of GHG emissions do not qualify for payment with this CFI methodology, their reduction could not be included as an offset income. At a carbon price of $20/ t CO 2 e, the reduction in enteric methane emissions was valued at $800/farm. The implementation cost of replacing grain with hominy was valued at $18,000/farm due to the hominy meal costing an additional $100/t dry matter compared to the grain. However, the additional milk production achieved due to the higher energy concentration of the diet resulted in an additional 70,200 litres and based on a summer milk price of $0.38/ litre, this equated to an additional income from milk valued at $26,676/farm. The overall result was a net increase in farm profit of $9,476/farm when paid on a reduction in total GHG emissions. COST can quickly allow users to ascertain the level of GHG emission reduction possible with various mitigation options and explore the sensitivity of key variables on GHG emissions and farm profitability.

ABSTRACTReturn of crop residues directly as straw, animal manure, or biochar are recommended management options for biowaste recycling and soil organic carbon (SOC) maintenance in agriculture. However, to address the soil health challenges associated with soil degradation and climate change, it is critical to determine if or which of these different forms of crop residues could deliver a synergic improvement in SOC storage, emission reduction, and crop productivity following field application. In this study, maize straw in the form of air‐dried biomass (CS), manure via cattle digestion (CM), and biochar via pyrolysis (CB) was respectively amended once at a dose of 10 t C ha−1, in comparison to no maize straw addition (CK), in a paddy field under rice‐wheat rotation. Changes in soil properties, SOC storage, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and rice/wheat yield were examined over two consecutive rice/wheat rotation cycles following soil amendment. The total rice grain yield considerably increased by 6% under CM and CB, while it reduced by 6% under CS compared to CK. Soil nutrient content persistently increased under CM and CB by 4.2% ~ 17% and 11% ~ 26% for total nitrogen, 26% ~ 61% and 20% ~ 53% for available P, and 2% ~ 82% and 30% ~ 115% for available K, respectively. Topsoil SOC storage increased considerably by 8% under CM and 20% under CB, while remained unchanged under CS, compared to CK. The total methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions were considerably increased by 7 folds and 15% under CS and 3.5 folds and 61% under CM, respectively, compared to CK. In contrast, these emissions considerably decreased under CB by 33% for CH4 and 29% for N2O. Consequently, the C emission efficiency considerably reduced under CS and CM but increased under CB over the two rotation cycles monitored. Moreover, the soil quality index (SQI) considerably improved under CM and CB but remained unchanged under CS compared to CK. Among the different forms of straw return, manure, and biochar, straw amendments differed considerably in their effects on C sequestration, GHG emissions, and crop productivity. Only biochar from crop residues synergistically improved these functions in the short‐term following application to paddy soil.

There are increasing concerns about the impact of agriculture and livestock production on the environment. As a result, it is important to have accurate estimations of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions if reduction measures are to be established. In this study the direct GHG emissions from South African sheep and goats during 2010 were calculated. Calculations were done per province and in total. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) methodology, adapted for tropical production systems, was used to calculate methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions on a Tier 2 level. Small stock is a key methane emission source in the South African livestock sector, and is responsible for an estimated 15.6% of the total livestock emissions. Small stock contributed an estimated 207.7 Giga gram (Gg) to the total livestock methane emissions in South Africa in 2010, with sheep producing 167 Gg and goats producing 40.7 Gg. Calculated enteric methane emission factors for both commercial and communal sheep of 8.5 kg/head/year and 6.1 kg/head/year, respectively, were higher than the IPCC default value of 5 kg CH4/head/year for developing countries. A similar tendency was found with goat emission factors. The highest sheep and goat methane emissions were reported for the Eastern Cape province, primarily because of animal numbers. Keywords : Greenhouse gas, methane, nitrous oxide, sheep, goats

Achieving the Paris Agreement 1.5 C target requires a reversal of the growing atmospheric concentrations of methane, which is about 80 times more potent than CO 2 on a 20-year timescale. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report stated that methane is underregulated, but little is known about the effectiveness of existing methane policies. In this review, we systematically examine existing methane policies across the energy, waste, and agriculture sectors. We find that currently only about 13% of methane emissions are covered by methane mitigation policies. Moreover, the effectiveness of these policies is far from clear, mainly because methane emissions are largely calculated using potentially unrepresentative estimates instead of direct measurements. Coverage and stringency are two major blind spots in global methane policies. These findings suggest that significant and underexplored mitigation opportunities exist, but unlocking them requires policymakers to identify a consistent approach for accurate quantification of methane emission sources alongside greater policy stringency. ll

Better information on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and mitigation potential in the agricultural sector is necessary to manage these emissions and identify responses that are consistent with the food security and economic development priorities of countries. Critical activity data (what crops or livestock are managed in what way) are poor or lacking for many agricultural systems, especially in developing countries. In addition, the currently available methods for quantifying emissions and mitigation are often too expensive or complex or not sufficiently user friendly for widespread use.The purpose of this focus issue is to capture the state of the art in quantifying greenhouse gases from agricultural systems, with the goal of better understanding our current capabilities and near-term potential for improvement, with particular attention to quantification issues relevant to smallholders in developing countries. This work is timely in light of international discussions and negotiations around how agriculture should be included in efforts to reduce and adapt to climate change impacts, and considering that significant climate financing to developing countries in post-2012 agreements may be linked to their increased ability to identify and report GHG emissions (Murphy et al 2010, CCAFS 2011, FAO 2011).

The recent study by Miller et al. (1) provides a comprehensive, quantitative analysis of anthropogenic methane sources in the United States using atmospheric methane observations, spatial datasets, and a high-resolution atmospheric transport model. The authors conclude that “…emissions due to ruminants and manure are up to twice the magnitude of existing [i.e., US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA); www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/usinventoryreport.html] inventories” (1). The validity of this “top-down” approach can be verified by a relatively simple “bottom-up” method using current livestock inventories and enteric or manure methane emission factors. Animal scientists have generated large datasets of enteric methane production estimates per unit of feed or energy intake. Methanogenesis in the rumen is substrate-dependent and methane production data derived from studies using respiratory chambers (or other techniques) expressed on feed intake basis are representative of field emissions, if feed intake is known. We used the US Department of Agriculture-National Agricultural Statistics Service (USDA-NASS) livestock inventory estimates for 2013 (www.nass.usda.gov) and methane emission rates per unit of feed dry matter intake from two large datasets [Hristov et al. (2) and Hales et al. (3)] to estimate total methane emission from enteric fermentation for the United States. Total cattle inventories for 2013 were 89,299,600 head (including 29,295,200 beef cows, 9,219,900 dairy cows, and 13,351,700 cattle on feed, among other categories). Feed dry matter intake was estimated based on beef and dairy cattle requirements and ranged from 3.8 (calves 500 lbs), 11 (beef cows), and 22 kg/d (dairy cows). Methane production rates were estimated at 8–13 (cattle on feed) or 20 g/kg (all other categories; SD = 4) feed dry matter intake. Contributions to methane emissions by other ruminants or nonruminant herbivores (sheep, goats, wild ruminants, horses, and so forth) are small in the United States and were not included in this analysis. With the above assumptions, total methane emissions from enteric fermentation were estimated at 6.241 Tg/yr (minimum = 4.972 and maximum = 7.511), which is comparable to the current, 2011 US EPA estimates of 6.542 Tg/yr and was also independently verified using equations proposed by Moraes et al. (4). USDA-NASS inventories for cattle, swine (59,387,000 market swine and 5,834,000 breeding swine), and poultry (a total of 8.562 billion birds) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (5) manure methane emission factors [from 0.02 (most poultry categories), to 1 (beef cattle) and 53 (dairy cows) kilograms per head per year] were used to estimate emissions from manure management. Using this approach, manure emissions in the United States were estimated at 1.604 Tg/yr, which is lower than the 2011 US EPA estimate of 2.478 Tg/yr (with the latter figure perhaps being more representative of manure systems in the United States). Thus, the conclusions by Miller et al. (1) that US EPA estimates for livestock methane emissions are grossly underestimated appears to be unsubstantiated by the above “bottom-up” approach. There is a need for a detailed inventory of manure systems for all farm animal species and categories, which will help to more accurately estimate greenhouse gas (and ammonia) emissions from animal manure in the United States.

Iron oxide is the most important electron acceptor in paddy fields. We aimed to suppress the methane emission from paddy fields over the long term by single application of iron materials. A revolving furnace slag (RFS; 245 g Fe kg-1) and a spent disposable portable body warmer (PBW; 550 g Fe kg-1) were used as iron materials. Samples of a soil with a low iron level (18.5 g Fe kg-1), hearafter referred to as “a low-iron soil” and of a soil with a high iron level (28.5 g Fe kg-1), hearafter referred to as “an iron-rich soil,” were put into 3 L pots. At the beginning of the experiment, RFS was applied to the pots at the rate of 20 and 40 t ha-1, while PBW was applied at the rate of 10 t ha-1 only, and in the control both were not applied. Methane and nitrous oxide emissions from the potted soils with rice plants were measured by the closed chamber method in 2001 and 2002. When RFS was applied at the rates of 20 and 40 t ha-1 to the low-iron soil, the total methane emission during the cultivation period significantly decreased by 25–50% without a loss of grain yield. Applied iron materials clearly acted as electron acceptors, based on the increase in the amount of ferrous iron in soil. However, the suppressive effect was not evident in the iron-rich soil treated with RFS or PBW. On the other hand, nitrous oxide emission increased by 30–95%. As a whole, when the total methane and nitrous oxide emissions in the low-iron soil were converted to total greenhouse gas emissions expressed as CO2- C equivalents in line with the global warming potential, the total greenhouse gas emissions decreased by about 50% due to the application of RFS.