Material stocks and flows of extensive cattle production

Abstract

The current climate change and population boom is the result of the technical developments that aroused by the industrial revolution and the Second Word War. The food shortage arising from that steadily increase poses several problem for agriculture which is exacerbated by the ineffectual operation of the food processing industry. To cover the required amount of food leads higher greenhouse gas emission than CO₂ like CH₄ and N₂O. Considering this fact I kept it important to find a solution that can be inserted in our countries facility and which is independent from soil usage.

The importance of the cattle breeding sector is that it doesn’t require those agricultural lands which could also serve human’s need.

I will examine the impact of the extensive cattle with material flow analysis, which is able to show the flows of the specific materials in a given place and in a given time. This calculation is not used count with the pollution and economic factors of the materials.

According to my survey the results show that the examined farms needs 4,72; 4,64; 0,24 kg of material stock per one kg of meat to maintain the production. This production needs average 10-13 kg of dry matter input, of which major content is grass. As an unintended emission CO₂ emission is also generated: The generated amount of CO₂ depends on the Farm structure: in average 11,32; 16,02; 16,76 kg CO_{2 /} meat kg.

To make comparable results it demands weighted averages. That means to make material flow analysis result like feed intake and CO₂ emission needs to be weighted with the time which is needed for the production.

It can be claimed that the total CO₂ emission of an adult cattle is over 30 kg per one kg of meat, and there are no methods to decrease it. But on the other hand the usage of stocks can be reduced by different methods.

The first is the number of the livestock could be increased because it will also increase the efficiency of natural resource usage. On the other hand we can help the farms to co-operate with each other. It allows them to share their stocks. And the last solution is to make multifunctional farms which can produce plants and animals at the same time.

Despite of the high rate of productions’ CO₂ emission it is still competitive against intensive cattle, owing to the low rate of natural resource requirements