If it is necessary to highlight a sector that has known how to keep pace with the new times, that is the livestock-meat sector. And it is that, aware of the environmental challenges that we all have to face for the future of the planet, it has not stopped developing new methods and proposals that seek to keep livestock and industry on the rise with a more sustainable praxis.
An example of one of these great action plans and protagonist of this article is the European project Life Beef Carbon. Thanks to this, the beef sector is committed to reducing its carbon footprint by 15% in ten years collectively and thanks to joint work in four of the main European beef producing countries: France, Italy, Ireland and Spain.
The main intention of this project is promote innovative animal production systems and new practices that consolidate the economic, environmental and social sustainability of beef farms.
To carry out this project, an inventory has been made of existing methodologies and practices, analyzing common greenhouse gases, which will allow the updating of cutting-edge practices aimed at the aforementioned cause. This diagnosis also shows the positive contributions of production such as the maintenance of biodiversity thanks to pastures and hedgerows or the fixation of carbon that offsets an average of 30% of greenhouse gas emissions from livestock.
But if it is necessary to highlight objectives of this action plan that seek, rather than study and supervise, to change production from within, it should be noted that an observatory of some 2,000 pilot beef farms is created that will serve to assess carbon on a large scale, forming to 150 national and regional advisers, as well as 170 innovative farmers involved in building common knowledge that, later, they will be able to spread to meat producers who will transform the sector by putting the new methods into practice.
Among these new practices, we can emphasize that what is produced on the farms will be used to a greater extent, feed intake will be adjusted by increasing the lipids in the ration, and herd management will be improved. This last idea is based on the fact that grazing is a crucial activity to protect the environment because it helps to preserve almost 70% of the Spanish natural habitats.
In line with this, carrying out good manure management would avoid the purchase of fertilizers or maximize carbon storage by maintaining the surface of permanent pastures or implanting intermediate crops.
As stated at the beginning, this sector has not stopped innovating and it can be said that it has already incorporated many of these techniques, with Beef Carbon being the project that will make it possible to improve the environmental impact, as well as the economic and social aspects. from all the farms. If we look at Spain, a total of 127 farms are worked in the areas of Castilla la Mancha, Castilla y León, the Basque Country and Extremadura.
In short, these action plans will make clear in the beef value chains the interest and viability of the project that will fundamentally allow the carbon footprint of beef is reduced by 15% in 10 years.