The Role of Canadian Agriculture in Meeting Increased Global Protein Demand with Low Carbon Emitting Production

Abstract

Abstract:Although the demand on agriculture to produce food could double by 2050, changing diets will expand the global demand for protein even faster. Canadian livestock producers will likely expand in response to this market opportunity. Because of the high greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from animal protein production, the portion of this protein demand that can be met by pulse crops must be considered. The protein basis for GHG emission intensity was assessed for 2006 using a multi-commodity GHG emissions inventory model. Because arable land is required for other agricultural products, protein production and GHG emissions were also assessed on the basis of the land use. GHG emissions per unit of protein are one or two orders of magnitude higher for protein from livestock, particularly ruminants, than for protein from pulses. The protein production from pulses was moderately higher per unit of land than the protein from livestock. This difference was greater when soybeans were the only pulse in the comparison. Protein from livestock, especially ruminants, resulted in much higher GHG emissions per unit of land than the protein from pulses. A shift towards more protein from pulses could assure a better global protein supply and reduce GHG emissions associated with that supply.

District Scale GHG Emission Indicators for Canadian Field Crop and Livestock Production

“…As the main product of livestock, and given the importance of livestock GHG emissions to this assessment, extra attention was given to protein. The GHG-protein indicator has been used for comparing GHG emission intensities for multiple agricultural industries and commodities [7,18], and the policy relevance of this indicator has been effectively demonstrated [6,14,15,17,34]. In this paper, protein was taken to mean the animal-equivalent protein (AeP) composed of all of the essential amino acids needed in the human diet [35].…”

“…The only non-animal derived proteins considered were those that are potential meat substitutes. From a land management basis, pulses that produce these complete proteins are currently the only plants that could potentially displace animal production to any appreciable degree from the perspective of the human diet [7]. Dyer et al [18] calculated protein supply differently for carcass and non-carcass (milk, eggs and pulses) sources.…”

“…Pulses and non-carcass protein: The coefficients from Dyer and Vergé [7] for pulses is used in this analysis. Using protein-live weight conversion factors from Dyer et al [18], the protein contents used for milk was 237 kg per cow per year [10], while for eggs, the protein content was 1.03 kg per layer per year [12].…”

“…The Unified Livestock Industry and Crop Emissions Estimation System (ULICEES) model [6] has been applied to a wide range of Land Use Change (LUC) questions. The focus of the ULICEES model on livestock GHG emissions and the dominant role of livestock production in Canadian agriculture [7] make ULICEES a central tool in this analysis. Previous applications of ULICEES were at the provincial or east-west-national scales and driven by Canadian census data available at 5-year intervals.…”

“…ULICEES has defined the GHG emission budgets for beef, dairy, pork, poultry, and sheep [8][9][10][11][12][13]. ULICEES calculations have also been used to assess the competition for land between cattle and biodiesel feedstock production [14,15], and between livestock feed production and food or industrial crop production [16], the benefit of eco-grazing sheep and cattle [17], comparing the carbon footprints of plant and livestock protein [7], and the protein-based carbon footprints of different livestock types [18].…”