Beef production is a part of agriculture, both burdening and enriching the environment in several ways. The animal´s methane discharge contributes to climate change while manure can enrich crops with nutrient, which can also be deposited in the wrong place at the wrong time, polluting water and air. This, in its turn, can lead to acidification and eutrophication.Grazing animals can simultaneously contribute to the national goal for a rich agricultural landscape. In the idea-support project entitled Animal Driven Sustainable Beef Production Systems researchers are working with beef producers to find solutions that reduce the environmental impact from cattle while at the same time contributing to an open landscape and biodiversity.
“Our idea is that if you move around the animals frequently enough on your land the burden on the environment becomes acceptable. Such a system must be good enough for the external environment, and it must be economical enough for the farmers and the well-being of the animals. There are a number of bottlenecks to get through in order to create such a sustainable system and it is those we are trying to handle," says project manager Eva Solomon, an agronomist and researcher at the Institute for Agriculture and Environmental Engineering.
In the conducted tests, the animals (17 heifers in the winter of 2007/2008 and 2008/2009 and 34 heifers in the winter of 2008/2009) have changed their residing locations every month during the winter. One of the bottlenecks is the weather protection the animals must be provided. Under the Animal Welfare Act, they must have a dwelling consisting of at least three walls and a roof, thus, making it difficult to construct mobile weather protections and too expensive to build structures at each location. The project has been authorized to instead try to use a kind of tent as weather protection. The benefits have proven to be more than singular.
“Del is a relatively inexpensive mobile tent we have been using and the animals seem to enjoy them. The interest in the tents has proved to be high among farmers. The Board of Agriculture has inspected the tents and are now looking for solutions that make it possible to use the tents while complying with animal welfare legal requirements," she says.
Clayey Soils
One advantage of moving the animals on a regular basis is that the land they are using is less trodden. But it is still muddy, so to prevent the animals from becoming muddy and sinking into the soil the ground used in the project has been reinforced with a type of grass “grate" armor. The reinforcement mats have mainly been laid out where the animals trod the most, namely by the opening to the housing tent, where they drink water and by feeding stations.
“Grass reinforcement is a must for it to function at all, especially during winter, which has been very mild the last couple of years so the ground does not freeze. This is also both a simple solution and fairly inexpensive resulting in cleaner animals. In addition they like to walk on the grass reinforcement," says Eva Solomon.
Pollution of Surface Water
In the course of the project the scientists are also discovering how surface runoff of nitrogen and phosphorus are affected. As the animals trample the soil the water runoff from the land becomes by degrees more contaminated.
“We have collected samples that we will analyze in order to measure how polluted the water has become and how the number of animals affects water pollution. And we are still measuring, it is very interesting to find out what happens to a place after the animals have left," she says.
An additional aspect of the project is the farmers´ working environment. When the animals change their location, the feed hedges that lie collar-like around the feed must also be moved. This can only be done manually, which is difficult because the feed hedges weigh some 130 kilograms. Using a tractor in the pen when the ground is not totally frozen is destructive to the soil and the reason it has not been an alternative.
“We believe that we can use a kind of jack to raise the feed hedges, after that they can be moved by rolling them forward," she says.
Seven scientists from several disciplines, including the areas of health and safety, agricultural economics, livestock health, environment and management of plant nutrients and reduced environmental impact, are participating in the project to have the broadest approach responding to a diversity of issues. The idea-support project has also led to further funding from the Foundation for Agricultural Research in order to measure emissions of ammonia, nitrous oxide and methane.
“It is relatively easy to get financing to narrowly focused questions, but to take a more holistic approach, as we do now, would not have been possible without the idea-support grant," says Eva Solomon.
