Care about the climate? Eat more lamb!

[Linda Poole]

For all carnivores who care about climate, there's great news:

“The most sustainable food you can eat by my calculations is lamb,” CSIRO principal research scientist Dr Brad Ridoutt told a Cattle Australia industry forum in Albury last week.

That was one of the key conclusions from a CSIRO research project he recently led, funded by the CSIRO and Meat & Livestock Australia, which demonstrated Australia’s sheep meat sector is already climate neutral, is making no contribution to global temperature increases, and its impact is trending downward.

Dr Ridoutt said the results of the research contrast directly with the common narrative “that the worst thing you can possibly eat for your health or for the climate is red meat”.

“On the calculations I have done, the most sustainable food in the Australian food system is lamb,” he said.

“It uses virtually no cropland. Uses virtually no extracted water. Uses virtually no pesticides. And the industry is climate neutral.

“I mean you can’t get much better than that.”

Read the story at https://www.sheepcentral.com/lamb-is-the-most-sustainable-food-you-can-eat-csiro-research-shows/.

 

[Mike Thayer]

And they taste so good too!

 

[Mike Thayer]

I was pretty flippant in my earlier response. But after reading the article, I think it ties back to the article Janet McNally wrote in Graze magazine that I mentioned in a previous post. If we could get this out to the general public and especially to those in power, it would be a very powerful argument that the livestock industry is not at fault for many of the perceived issues of the climate.

Thanks, Linda for posting this information.

 

[Linda Poole]

You're welcome, Mike. The American Lamb Board is now working through a $5 million climate smart commodity grant to look at this very topic:

On December 12, 2022, USDA announced its investment in 71 projects under the second funding pool of Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities. This included a grant awarded to the American Lamb Board (ALB) for “Measuring the Climate Benefits and Emissions of Prescribed Sheep Grazing and Promoting the Consumption of Climate-Smart Lamb.”

The ALB grant project plans to measure and report carbon sequestration, soil health and other benefits, and associated ecosystem services provided by prescribed sheep grazing on four different pilot demonstration sites throughout the United States and market the resulting climate-smart lamb products. The USDA grant budget is $4.995 million.

ALB understands the importance of sustainability, including the industry’s environmental footprint. This new, multi-year project will complement the checkoff funded research nearing completion at Michigan State University, which is calculating emissions and developing mitigation strategies. “Quantifying the benefits of sheep grazing should bring value to the sheep industry and encourage sheep producers to further implement profitable grazing plans that enhance the environment,” says Camino.

It will be worthwhile to follow the progress of this project -- I think we'll see some strong data to back up what Janet McNally, the CSIRO scientist above, you, I and many others say about the benefits of well-managed sheep for healing the Earth while adding delicious, nutritious protein to our plates!

 

[Linda Poole]

And I shouldn't overlook the related work that we at the National Center for Appropriate Technology are doing with five other partners to lift up wool and cotton growers implementing climate beneficial practices:

Program Works With Wool, Cotton Producers on Green Practices

Producers will receive technical assistance and direct payments to improve soil health, drought resilience, and increase profitability.

dailyyonder.com