Journal of
agricuktural science
www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0912890107
PNAS |
November 16, 2010 | vol. 107
| no. 46 |
19671
POTENTIAL FOR
REDUCED METHANE AND CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS FROM LIVESTOCK AND PASTURE
MANAGEMENT IN THE TROPICS
Philip K. Thorntona,b,1 and Mario Herrerob
aConsultative
Group on International Agricultural Research/Earth System Science Partnership
Challenge Program on Climate Change, Agriculture & Food Security,
University of Copenhagen, DK-1958 Frederiksberg, Denmark; and bInternational
Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi 00100, Kenya
Edited by Ruth S.
DeFries, Columbia University, New York, NY, and approved July 30, 2010
(received for review November 10, 2009)
Upload by I Made Adi Sudarma, Animal
Science Programs, Post Graduate Program of Nusa Cendana University, Kupang, November
28, 2012.
abstract
We estimate
the potential reductions
in methane and
carbon dioxide emissions from several livestock and pasture management options
in the mixed and rangeland-based production systems in the tropics.
The impacts of
adoption of improved
pastures, intensifying ruminant
diets, changes in
land-use practices, and changing breeds of large ruminants on the
production of methane and carbon dioxide
are calculated for
two levels of
adoption: complete adoption, to estimate the upper limit to reductions
in these greenhouse gases
(GHGs), and optimistic
but plausible adoption rates
taken from the literature, where these exist. Results are expressed both in GHG
per ton of livestock product and in Gt CO 2 -eq. We estimate that the maximum
mitigation potential of these options in the land-based livestock systems in
the tropics amounts to approximately 7% of the global agricultural mitigation potential
to 2030. Using historical adoption rates from the literature, the plausible
mitigation potential of these options could contribute approximately 4% of
global agricultural GHG mitigation. This could be worth on the order of $1.3
billion per year at a price of $20 per t CO 2 -eq. The household-level and
sociocultural impacts of some of these options warrant further study, however,
because livestock have multiple roles in tropical systems that often go far beyond
their productive utility.
bovines | intensi fi cation |
mitigation | systems
