EBLEX Phase two roadmap published

EBLEX, the English Beef and Lamb Executive, has published phase 2 of its roadmap, entitled "Testing the Water – The English Beef and Sheep Production Environmental Roadmap – Phase 2".

By way of background, English farmers are required to continue reducing their annual GHG emissions, with the immediate priority of farming emissions to be at least 11% lower than current predictions by 2020. EBLEX’s phase one roadmap report, "Change in the Air", therefore looked at how improvements of 11% could be made in these areas by 2020, and concluded that breeding, feeding and management all offered significant opportunities for progress. "Change in the Air" is attached below. This second roadmap uses more detailed modelling with data from specific enterprises to quantify links between environmental and economic performance. It establishes a reliable water usage footprint for the industry, quantifies beef and sheep meat’s contribution to the landscape and biodiversity of England, and takes a snapshot of the energy performance of the processing sector.

Across 30 beef units studied, the E-CO₂ carbon calculator (developed for this work) shows an average 100- year GWPof 11.93kg CO₂ eq per kg liveweight, or 23.9kg per kg of carcase weight. There is a wide range around this average - from little more than 3kg CO₂ eq per kg liveweight (6.4 kg/kg carcase weight) to nearly 27kg (53.8 kg/kg carcase weight). These results confirm that GHG emissions are notably higher in more extensive systems, based on lower quality forages that support lower growth rates, generating greater levels of methane. Comparing environmental performance and economic performance shows encouraging links. Every 5kg CO₂ eq reduction in GHG emissions per kg of liveweight, is associated with a 50p per kilogram improvement in financial margin wide range in sheep too: Individual sheep system estimates again show strong variation, with lowland flocks having a distinct environmental advantage over hill enterprises, mainly as a result better quality forages and higher growth rates.

There is an even more positive association between environmental and financial performance than in the beef industry - every 1kg CO₂ eq reduction per kg liveweight in GHG emissions being associated with a 28p improvement inenterprise margin (Figure 1.2). The roadmap also looks at water and finds that 67 litres of blue water are needed to produce one kg of beef, and 49 litres to produce one kg of lamb. 4 million cubic metres of water are used each year in beef and sheep slaughtering and processing. NB: blue water is water abstracted all abstractions from rivers, lakes and groundwater for irrigation, feed processing, animal drinking, cleaning and other stock-keeping requirements. Green water is the rain that falls from the sky directly into the land that’s using it. On biodiversity, the report says that there are no existing valuation studies specifically investigating the effect of beef or sheep farming on either the landscape or biodiversity. In the absence of other mechanisms, the roadmap uses Defra’s Environmental Accounts for Agriculture.

Through this it is possible to attribute abenefit to landscape value of beef and sheep production in England. Looking purely at the benefit of beef and sheep production on the landscape, based on Defra figures, this would be £64 million. However, when other issues such as tourist revenue from areas where a proportion of the land is maintained by beef and sheep production are taken into account, the real figure could be closer to £1.49 billion. NB: the report doesn’t make any mention of the ecosystem costs associated with the livestock sector, such as overgrazing and erosion, or groundwater pollution. "Testing the water" is also attached below.

For discussion and critique of the report’s findings see the Forum pages here.