A couple of years ago, the American Lamb Board (ALB) made a decision to initiate a study to evaluate the environmental footprint of the U.S. sheep industry.
This proactive approach, working with Michigan State University (MSU), resulted from a 2011 Environmental Group Study which found sheep and lambs to be one of the largest contributors of greenhouse gases (GHG).
Sheep and GHG have never been on my radar, and I don’t believe it has been on others’ either.
We know some environmental groups have been after cattle for some time now, but I think it is mostly caused by animal rights activists wanting people to quit eating meat. It would be interesting to see who was on the Environmental Working Group Study and who was funding them.
In a statement, then ALB Chairman Peter John Camino of Buffalo said, “It is extremely important for our industry to identify and evaluate our role in GHG emissions. Accurate data is the basis for improvement strategies and providing factual information to consumers and the media.”
Camino has always been a leader in the sheep industry. This Wyoming Agriculture Hall of Fame recipient is being honored with the McClure Silver Ram Award at the American Sheep Industry’s annual convention in Scottsdale, Ariz. later this month. We thank him for all of his years of service in the sheep industry.
I was curious to see what other studies MSU had done on the environment and climate change, and man was I surprised. They have done a lot on the GHG issue.
They did include positive attributes of sheep production, which was nice to read. But row crops, cattle, sheep and lambs took a lot of heat for causing climate change. Basically, they believe agriculture is the problem.
There are statements like, “According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (UN), the livestock sector contributes between 15 to 18 percent of all GHG emissions. Beef and milk cattle are responsible for most of the emissions, followed by meat pigs and water buffalo, milk and meat.”
I may be wrong, but I have never trusted any data on agriculture coming from the UN. If they want to do some good, they need to work on GHG emissions in China and India.
Another study conducted by the University of Michigan and Tulane University, commissioned by the Center for Biological Diversity, said, “Replacing one-half of all animal-based foods like red meat, poultry, fish or seafood, eggs, dairy and animal-based fats with plant-based alternatives would reduce U.S. diet-related emissions by 35 percent.”
We all need to help take care of our planet and feed the 800 million hungry around the world, but we have to get politics and our selfish ideologies out of the way.
I think there are a lot of Americans who are fed up with the climate change talk and people telling us what to eat and not to eat. We just don’t know who to believe anymore. When people go to the store and buy meat, milk and eggs, no one is thinking about climate change or GHG.
Dennis Sun is the publisher of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup, a weekly agriculture newspaper available online and in print. He can be reached at: Dennis@WYLR.net
