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REVIEW article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Climate-Smart Food Systems
Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1556433
This article is part of the Research TopicClimate-Smart Livestock Production: Strategies for Enhanced Sustainability and ResilienceView all 9 articles
Is Climate Neutral possible for the U.S. beef and dairy sectors?
Provisionally accepted- 1Kansas State University, Manhattan, United States
- 2Texas A and M University, College Station, Texas, United States
- 3Kansas State University Olathe, Olathe, Kansas, United States
- 4Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, United States
- 5Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, United States
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The objective of this review and modeling effort is to define climate neutrality as it relates to beef and dairy production, and to introduce accounting methods that will help guide the livestock industry's ability to achieve climate targets, to summarize emission mitigation strategies, and present potential scenarios to achieve climate neutral emissions for the beef and dairy industries.The global target to limit global warming to 1.5 ºC above pre-industrial levels by 2050 has resulted in many companies, including agribusiness companies, setting voluntary emission reduction targets. The main concept behind these goals is that GHG emissions do not exceed the GHG removed from the atmosphere by GHG sinks. Where multiple greenhouse gases are involved, the quantification of climate neutral emissions depends on the climate metric and time horizon chosen to place these gases on an equivalent basis (e.g., global warming potential, and global warming potential-star). As the ruminant supply chain emits both short-lived (methane; CH4) and long-lived (carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide) GHGs, how companies choose to account for these gases will impact their progress towards these goals. Further, mitigation strategies for beef and dairy systems have predominantly focused on enteric CH4 emissions and soil C sequestration. However, several hurdles still exist to reduce emissions by the magnitude required to realistically achieve a net zero supply chain. Determining the ability of a system to be climate neutral is a complicated and complex process and will not be achieved by a "silver bullet" approach. The scientific community will need to develop multiple mitigation strategies that are regionally and contextually adaptable.
Keywords: Climate neutrality, Manure emissions, Enteric emissions, Ruminant livestock, Greenhouse gas emissions
Received: 06 Jan 2025; Accepted: 14 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Thompson, Beck, Larson, Rowntree, Place and Stackhouse-Lawson. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Logan Thompson, Kansas State University, Manhattan, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.