Attendees at last week’s BETTER Farm Beef Challenge national open day in Laois will have heard about the latest project that the BETTER farm programme is contributing to – the LIFE Beef Carbon project.

The project, which is being spearheaded in Ireland by Donal O’Brien and Jonathan Herron of Teagasc, is designed to tackle the increasingly important issue of beef carbon footprint. Some of the following points were discussed on the day:

Carbon snapshot

The Lalors are running 110 suckler cows, 300 ewes and 100 dairy calves on a 121ha block near Ballacolla in Laois. All suckler progeny and dairy calves are taken to beef apart from what is kept for replacements.

The Figures above give a snapshot of the farm’s beef carbon footprint. The farm has a gross carbon footprint of over 12kg of carbon dioxide equivalent per kg of liveweight gain.

When we take the amount of carbon sequestered (stored) by the farm into consideration, the net carbon footprint of the beef production is less than 10kg of carbon dioxide equivalent per kg of liveweight gain.

On the emissions front, belching, purchased feed, fertiliser and fertiliser are the main sources of carbon emissions.

However, the LIFE beef carbon project has been designed to look at the bigger picture and to factor in the positive contributions of beef farms that counteract the emissions problem. In this case, we can see that the farm is feeding 949 people annually as well as storing 43t of carbon and maintaining 205ha of biodiversity.

Positive contribution

The following were highlighted as just some of the actions being taken by the Lalors to help reduce their overall carbon footprint.

Harry and Joe are trying to maximise the volume of grass grown on the farm by improving soil fertility and grazing infrastructure. This increase in grass growth from improved grassland management will improve the farms response to N fertiliser and reduce carbon and ammonia losses.

Furthermore, by improving the digestibility and quality of grass in the diet, the proportion of dietary energy lost as methane is reduced due to an increased proportion of leaf at the expense of stem and dead material in the high-quality sward.

Calving performance also plays a big role. Getting 0.95 calves/cow/year versus 0.83 has the ability to reduce net carbon footprint by 7.5%. Also, by calving heifers at 24 months of age versus 28 months of age, the farm is reducing its net footprint by 1.8%.

Herd health has been an issue on the farm. Improving herd health through implementing a herd health plan will allow more animals reach their potential thus optimising animal performance, increasing overall beef production. Sicknesses such as pneumonia and liver fluke can increase the carbon footprint of beef by 4% and 10% respectively.

Dairy calves have been purchased from nearby dairy farms as a means to increase farm productivity. Although they are less efficient in gaining weight than suckler animals, purchased dairy calves have potential to reduce the Lalors' beef carbon footprint. As there are no cows directly rearing these dairy calves, there are no cow emissions embodied in beef produced by dairy calves, thus resulting in lower GHG emissions per unit output than suckler animals.