Other people have answered more thoroughly, but it should be added that even your source never calls grass fed beef carbon neutral (on the very first paragraph it even says that it isn’t), just that it has a better CO2 footprint than grain fed beef (and that not by much, as has been pointed out)
No, nor is its best case carbon neutral. See my sibling comment about that. It’s also worth mentioning here that the typical grass-fed production is actually higher in methane emissions due to longer raising times
Taken together, an exclusively grass-fed beef cattle herd would raise the United States’ total methane emissions by approximately 8%.
Or if we look at Australia, which likes to tout its grass-fed production, it’s still majority feedlot
51% of domestically consumed beef comes from feedlots.
[…]
In Q1 2021, 19% of cattle on feed were on feed for less than 100 days
And trend-wise, grain-fed rather than grass-fed is increasing
Going forward, these trends indicate that the Australian grainfed sector will continue to make up a growing percentage of cattle slaughter and beef production
It’s not carbon neutral if you look at studies that account for more factors. For instance, here’s an article with an interview of the researchers in the field talking about how there is no carbon-neutral beef
There’s not been a single study to say that we can have carbon-neutral beef
[…]
We also have to ask how much of the sequestered carbon in these systems is actually due to the cattle. What would happen to the land if it were simply left fallow?
If we look at much more rigorous reviews on the carbon sequestration potential of “regenerative grazing” it’s pretty slim. It cannot even sequester enough to counteract just grazing only production which only produces 1g protein/person/day
Ruminants in grazing-only systems emit about 1.32 Gt
[…]
These are their emissions. The question is, could grazing ruminants also help sequester carbon in soils, and if so to what extent might this compensate? As the following numbers show, the answer is ‘not much’.
Global (as opposed to regional or per hectare) assessments of the sequestration potential through grassland management are actually few and far between, but range from about 0.3-0.8 Gt CO 2/yr 301,302,303 with the higher end estimate assuming a strong level of ambition.
And keep in mind that this doesn’t scale very well due to the massive land it requires. Already clearing land for pastures is a large deforester. Trying to even scale to a quarter of beef demand would require using 100% of grassland which would put enormous pressure for further deforestation
We model a nationwide transition [in the US] from grain- to grass-finishing systems using demographics of present-day beef cattle. In order to produce the same quantity of beef as the present-day system, we find that a nationwide shift to exclusively grass-fed beef would require increasing the national cattle herd from 77 to 100 million cattle, an increase of 30%. We also find that the current pastureland grass resource can support only 27% of the current beef supply (27 million cattle), an amount 30% smaller than prior estimates
[…]
If beef consumption is not reduced and is instead satisfied by greater imports of grass-fed beef, a switch to purely grass-fed systems would likely result in higher environmental costs, including higher overall
methane emissions. Thus, only reductions in beef consumption can guarantee reductions in the environmental impact of US food systems.
The key is to farm or graze using regenerative methods. Current factory farming methods are detrimental to the soil and the rest of the environemnt in many ways. Bear in mind, however, that the largest contributor to greenhouse gasses is the healthcare sector, and that’s going to be a tough nut to crack.
Check out the “sodcasts” of Peter Ballerstedt on his YouTube channel. He’s a forage agronomist with a lot of knowledge. You may not like his conclusions, but he gives you the data to check them out.
I looked on google scholar to see any of their papers. Most of what I could find doesn’t seem to be exactly peer-reviewed articles nor are most really cited by any other papers. At that they are making rather bold claims with rather weak evidence
To be fair. There is much debate around whether livestock is indirectly carbon neutral with very valid studies on both sides
Please link any study on livestock being CO2-neutral. I’m very skeptical, but would love to read your source first.
I don’t have access to my schools library atm. But here’s one I found off google (which is admittedly a poor method to find studies)
https://smallfarms.oregonstate.edu/new-study-finds-grass-fed-beef-reduces-carbon-footprint
Full disclaimer I should have clarified in my original comment. Grass fed livestock specifically is carbon neutral
Other people have answered more thoroughly, but it should be added that even your source never calls grass fed beef carbon neutral (on the very first paragraph it even says that it isn’t), just that it has a better CO2 footprint than grain fed beef (and that not by much, as has been pointed out)
Are the majority of livestock grass fed?
No, nor is its best case carbon neutral. See my sibling comment about that. It’s also worth mentioning here that the typical grass-fed production is actually higher in methane emissions due to longer raising times
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aad401/pdf
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aad401
Or if we look at Australia, which likes to tout its grass-fed production, it’s still majority feedlot
And trend-wise, grain-fed rather than grass-fed is increasing
https://www.mla.com.au/prices-markets/market-news/2021/grainfed-cattle-make-up-50-of-beef-production/
It’s not carbon neutral if you look at studies that account for more factors. For instance, here’s an article with an interview of the researchers in the field talking about how there is no carbon-neutral beef
If we look at much more rigorous reviews on the carbon sequestration potential of “regenerative grazing” it’s pretty slim. It cannot even sequester enough to counteract just grazing only production which only produces 1g protein/person/day
https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/reports/fcrn_gnc_report.pdf
And keep in mind that this doesn’t scale very well due to the massive land it requires. Already clearing land for pastures is a large deforester. Trying to even scale to a quarter of beef demand would require using 100% of grassland which would put enormous pressure for further deforestation
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aad401
The key is to farm or graze using regenerative methods. Current factory farming methods are detrimental to the soil and the rest of the environemnt in many ways. Bear in mind, however, that the largest contributor to greenhouse gasses is the healthcare sector, and that’s going to be a tough nut to crack.
got any reading on that ? legit never heard that before
See my comment further down the thread going into detail about how this is not the case https://lemmy.ml/comment/646750
Check out the “sodcasts” of Peter Ballerstedt on his YouTube channel. He’s a forage agronomist with a lot of knowledge. You may not like his conclusions, but he gives you the data to check them out.
I looked on google scholar to see any of their papers. Most of what I could find doesn’t seem to be exactly peer-reviewed articles nor are most really cited by any other papers. At that they are making rather bold claims with rather weak evidence