An exploration of biodiversity limits to grazing ruminant milk and meat production

Kajsa Resare Sahlin (), Line J. Gordon, Regina Lindborg, Johannes Piipponen, Pierre Rysselberge, Julia Rouet-Leduc and Elin Röös
Additional contact information
Kajsa Resare Sahlin: Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University
Line J. Gordon: Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University
Regina Lindborg: Stockholm University
Johannes Piipponen: Aalto University
Pierre Rysselberge: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Julia Rouet-Leduc: Leipzig University
Elin Röös: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Nature Sustainability, 2024, vol. 7, issue 9, 1160-1170

Abstract: Abstract The production and consumption of animal-source foods must be transformed to mitigate negative environmental outcomes, including greenhouse gas emissions and land-use change. However, livestock are also key for food production and for livelihoods in some settings, and they can help preserve biodiversity and certain ecosystems. Previous studies have not yet fully explored sustainability limits to the use of grazing lands for food production in the context of biodiversity. Here we explore ‘biodiversity limits’ to grassland ruminant production by estimating the meat and milk production from domestic ruminants limited to grazing areas and stocking densities where livestock can contribute to the preservation or restoration of biodiversity. With biodiversity-friendly grazing intensities at 0–20% biomass removal depending on aridity, this take on biodiversity limits corresponds to 9–13% and 26–40% of the current grassland-based milk and meat production, respectively. This equals only 2.2 kg of milk and 0.8 kg of meat per capita per year, globally, but altered management and moving from meat-specialized to meat-and-dairy systems could increase the potential production while still remaining within this approach to biodiversity limits.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-024-01398-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natsus:v:7:y:2024:i:9:d:10.1038_s41893-024-01398-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/natsustain/

DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01398-4

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Sustainability is currently edited by Monica Contestabile

More articles in Nature Sustainability from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().