Managing livestock enterprises in Australia's extensive rangelands for greenhouse gas and environment outcomes: a pastoral company perspective

Abstract

Extensive grazing of beef cattle is the principal use of the northern Australia land area. While north Australian beef production has traditionally utilised a low-input, low-output system of land management, recent innovations have increased the efficiency with which beef is produced. Investment to raise efficiency of cattle production by improving herd genetics, property infrastructure, the seasonal feed-base and its utilisation, as well as promoting feedlot finishing can all be expected to reduce the number of unproductive animals and reduce age-at-slaughter. Consequently, these innovations can all be expected to contribute to a reduction in the emissions intensity of greenhouse gases (GHG; t GHG/t liveweight gain). The North Australian Pastoral Company (NAPCO) has adopted these technologies to enhance reproductive and growth efficiency of the herd and has coupled them with changes in other aspects of property operation, such as use of solar energy systems, establishment of introduced perennial pastures and minimum tillage, to achieve production and operational gains, which also reduce the emissions intensity of their pastoral properties. Investments to improve production efficiency have been consistent with both financial and, in principle, environmental objectives of NAPCO. While NAPCO supports the development and implementation of new mitigation strategies, the company requires greater knowledge on pastoral emission levels and clarity on the future position of agriculture in a carbon economy. This information would enable confirmation of current emission levels, modelling of mitigation options and evaluation of the efficacy of potential on-farm carbon sinks. This paper presents NAPCO’s perspective on GHG emissions in the context of its pastoral enterprise, including current and future research and mitigation objectives.

Evaluating Dispersion Modeling Options to Estimate Methane Emissions from Grazing Beef Cattle

“…Assuming a relationship of 19.7 g CH 4 kg −1 DMI (Kennedy and Charmley, 2012), the mean emission for these cattle would have been 153 g animal −1 d −1 . In a model study (Bentley et al, 2008) that was based on DMI, the CH 4 emission of cattle in the pastoral system of Northern Australia ranged from 358 to 417 g animal −1 d −1 . In comparison, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Dong et al, 2006) emission rate (Tier 1 category) is 164 g animal −1 d −1 for nondairy cattle in the Oceania region.…”

Measurement and mitigation of methane emissions from beef cattle in tropical grazing systems: a perspective from Australia and Brazil

“…In northern Australia, the loss of volatile N compounds from manures is low because of low feed N content and conditions favouring rapid drying of manures (Bentley et al, 2008). Emissions from rangeland cattle grazing extensive tropical pastures are recognized to be higher (i.e.…”

The concordance between greenhouse gas emissions, livestock production and profitability of extensive beef farming systems

“…Reducing the number of unproductive animals can improve both emissions intensity and gross margin (Bentley et al 2008;Browne et al 2015). Previous work has shown that the number of unproductive animals can be reduced by maintaining a smaller number of more productive animals, improving weaning rates, achieving early puberty and mating of female animals, or increasing cow longevity (Hristov et al 2013).…”