PARIS - IT MAY sound like a whole load of bull, but 1kg of intensively farmed beef fuels more greenhouse gas than driving for three hours while leaving all the lights on back home, according to a new Japanese study.
A team led by Dr Akifumi Ogino of Japan's National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Tsukuba, calculated the environmental cost of raising cattle through conventional farming, slaughtering the animal and distributing the meat, New Scientist magazine reports in its issue, which will hit newsstands next Saturday.
Dr Ogino found that producing a slab of steak weighing 1kg causes the equivalent of 36.4kg in carbon dioxide (CO2), the principal greenhouse gas.
Most of these greenhouse gases are methane released into the atmosphere as a cow digests its cud.
Yielding the energy needed to produce and transport the animals' feed also requires the energy equivalent to lighting a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days.
The team's calculations were based on standard industrial meat production processes in Japan, and excluded the impact of managing farm infrastructure and transporting the beef. This means the total environmental load of global beef production is higher than the study suggests.
Dr Ogino's team suggested that, with better waste management and by breeding calves slightly faster, the total environmental load could be cut by almost 6 per cent.
Also, a 2003 Swedish study had suggested that organic beef emits 40 per cent less greenhouse gases and consumes 85 per cent less energy because the animals are raised on grass, not concentrated animal feed.
