Cattle line up at a trough in a feedlot, which are now widely used in Argentina. Credit: Courtesy of Ana Garcia

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Aug 6 2018 (IPS)

Beef is one of the symbols historically identified with Argentina. After lean years, production and exports are growing, as is the debate on the environmental impact of cattle, which is on the radar of environmentalists and actors in the agricultural value chain.

The problem of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions – methane and nitrous oxide – from livestock farming has been raised since the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit.

But “it was very hard to get Argentina to take it seriously,” veterinarian Guillermo Berra, who led the first research group on the subject at the governmental National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA), told IPS."The aim must be to improve the productivity of livestock systems. The weaning rate, which reflects the proportion of cows that produce the ideal of one calf per year that is ready to be fattened, is 60 percent, compared to 85 percent in the United States. Improving that rate would mean producing more meat with the same emissions." -- Sebastián Galbusera

“The intensification of production processes through feedlots has improved yields lately and has therefore contributed to reducing GHG emissions, but it has generated another problem, which is soil and groundwater pollution,” he explained.

According to the latest National GHG Inventory, which Argentina submitted last year to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), agriculture and livestock raising, including deforestation, generates 39 percent of total emissions.

A significant detail emerges from the data: livestock farming is the subsector with the highest emissions, ahead of transport, emitting 76.41 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent per year, which represents 20.7 percent of the total.

‘Enteric fermentation’, which refers to the methane that cattle release into the atmosphere as a result of their normal digestion process, is the main source.

Sebastián Galbusera, who teaches environmental economics at the ‘Tres de Febrero’ National University, told IPS that “these results should come as no surprise in a country where farming is key. But they show us the complexity of the challenge of reducing emissions.”

“The aim must be to improve the productivity of livestock systems. The weaning rate, which reflects the proportion of cows that produce the ideal of one calf per year that is ready to be fattened, is 60 percent, compared to 85 percent in the United States. Improving that rate would mean producing more meat with the same emissions,” he added.

Argentina was the world’s largest exporter of beef at the beginning of the 20th century. However, in recent decades, livestock farming has not experienced the same technological development as agriculture, which has gained ground and relegated it to feedlots or marginal areas.

Osvaldo Barsky, a researcher on rural history in Argentina, told IPS that “with the incorporation of technologies and varieties, agriculture expanded to the best lands.”

“In livestock farming, the processes were slower and there were even times of decline, such as when President Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) temporarily banned exports to curb the growth of domestic prices,” he said.

Livestock farming is responsible for the highest greenhouse gas emissions in Argentina, ahead of transport, emitting 76.41 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, which is 20.7 percent of the total. Credit: Courtesy of Ana Garcia

As a result, “there was a major drop in production, 10 million head of cattle were lost and neighbours like Uruguay and Paraguay overtook us in the international market,” said Barsky. Meanwhile, Brazil has become the world’s largest exporter of beef and poultry in the last two years.

Today, beef is one of the few sectors of economic activity where the government of Mauricio Macri, in office since December 2015, can show favourable figures.

Macri himself, in fact, led the bimonthly meeting of the National Beef Board, which brings together various state and private stakeholders, on Jul. 16.

According to official data, in the first five months of this year Argentina exported 60 percent more beef than in the same period in 2017: 121,277 tons against 75,934.

Government projections released on Jul. 19 indicate that the country will export 435,000 tons of beef this year, surpassing Uruguay and Paraguay for the first time in years, although still far behind Brazil, which will export some two million tons.

Currently, half of Argentina’s beef exports go to China, followed by Russia, Chile, Israel and Germany in that order.

Exports reached 1.2 billion dollars in 2017 and the government hopes they will bring in nearly two billion dollars this year.

Production is also growing, albeit at a slower pace.

Average domestic consumption of beef in this country of 44 million people, which at one point reached an average of 80 kg per person per year, fell due to competition from other kinds of meat, but is still high: 59 kg, according to updated figures from the Argentine Beef Promotion Institute (IPCVA).

Berra warns that “If we want to continue exporting in the long term, livestock production must not only be economically efficient but also environmentally sustainable and socially responsible.”

“Argentina, in the future, could be at a commercial disadvantage if environmental trade barriers are implemented,” he added.

In this sense, feedlots play a fundamental role. Extensive livestock farming and its pastoral image of cows grazing in open fields is becoming less and less common.

Feedlots, which began to be used in Argentina in the 1990s, allow for intensive meat production in less time and with less space.

Currently, 65 to 70 percent of the cattle that arrive at slaughterhouses in Argentina come from feedlots, Fernando Storni, general manager of the Argentine Feedlot Chamber, told IPS.

“This production method in Argentina is relatively new and regulations are still being designed. The disposal of livestock waste is only regulated in one province (Córdoba),” he added.

Storni said that “we are aware that we have to work on mitigating the impacts because the requirements are going to be increasingly strict at the international level.”

The issue is being followed with concern by researchers from the School of Agronomy of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA).

Ana García, who holds a PhD in Agricultural and Forestry Research and is a researcher at the UBA School of Agronomy, said that “it is urgent to regulate these activities because they have a negative impact on the environment and can affect human health.”

“I have been studying feedlots since 2004 and I see that there is no adequate treatment or final destination for problems that accumulate over the years. There is a lack of synchronisation of the production system with environmental criteria. You have to help producers to set criteria before you can demand it,” said Ileana Ciapparelli, a professor of Inorganic Chemistry at UBA.

She explained that “producers don’t know how to dispose of the feedlot solid waste and do what they can. Some use it to try to improve soil fertility but others leave it in piles, generating a source of methane emissions.”

Ciapparelli carried out a study that showed that hundreds of tons of manure deposited in clay soil generate concentrations of substances that can penetrate the soil up to more than a metre deep and contaminate groundwater, which in turn is connected to surface water bodies.

One of these substances is phosphorus, a nutrient that agricultural producers buy through fertilisers and that could be obtained from the waste from feedlots, which today contaminate watercourses.

Attempts to genetically modify food staples, such as crops and cattle, to increase their nutritional value and overall performance have prompted world-wide criticism by environmental, nutritionists and agriculture experts, who say that protecting and fomenting biodiversity is a far better solution to hunger and malnutrition.

Two cases have received world-wide attention: one is a project to genetically modify bananas, the other is an international bull genome project.

In June, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it has allocated some 10 million dollars to finance an Australian research team at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), working on vitamin A-enriched bananas in Uganda, by genetically modifying the fruit.

On the other hand,  according to its project team, the “1000 bull genomes project” aims “to provide, for the bovine research community, a large database for imputation of genetic variants for genomic prediction and genome wide association studies in all cattle breeds.”“It makes little sense to support genetic engineering at the expense of (traditional, organic) technologies that have proven to substantially increase yields, especially in many developing countries” – ‘Failure to Yield’, a study by the U.S. Union of Concerned Scientists

In both cases, the genetic modification (GM) of bananas and of bovines is an instrument to allegedly increase the nutritional value and improve the overall quality of the food staples, be it the fruit itself, or, in the case of cattle, of meat and milk.

James Dale, professor at QUT, and leader of the GM banana project, claims that “good science can make a massive difference here by enriching staple crops such as Ugandan bananas with pro-vitamin A and providing poor and subsistence-farming populations with nutritionally rewarding food.”

In the ‘1000 bull genomes project’, the scientists involved (from Australia, France, Germany, and other countries) have sequenced – that is, established the order of – the whole genomes of hundreds of cows and bulls. “This sequencing includes data for 129 individuals from the global Holstein-Friesian population, 43 individuals from the Fleckvieh breed and 15 individuals from the Jersey breed,” write the scientists in an article published in Nature Genetics of July 13.

The reactions from environmental activists, nutritionists, and scientists could not be more critical. The banana case has even prompted a specific campaign launched in India – the “No to GMO Bananas Campaign”.

The campaign, launched by Navdanya, a non-governmental organisation founded by the international environmental icon Vandana Shiva, insists that “GMO bananas are … not a solution to” malnutrition and hunger.

The group argues that so-called bio-fortification of bananas – “the genetic manipulation of the fruit, to cut and paste a gene, seeking to make a new or lost micronutrient,” as genetic expert Bob Phelps has put it – is a waste of time and money, and constitutes a risk to biodiversity.

“Bananas are highly nutritional but have only 0.44 mg of iron per 100 grams of edible portion,” a Navdanya spokesperson said. “All the effort to increase iron content of bananas will fall short the (natural) iron content of indigenous biodiversity.”

The rationale supporting bio-fortication suggests that the genetic manipulation can multiply the iron content of bananas by six. This increase would lead to an iron content of 2.6 mg per 100 grams of edible fruit.

“That would be 3,000 percent less than iron content in turmeric, or lotus stem, 2,000 percent less than mango powder,” the spokesperson at Navdanya said. “The safe, biodiverse alternatives to GM bananas are multifold.”

Scientists have indeed demonstrated that the GM agriculture has so far failed to deliver higher yields than organic processes.

In a study carried out in 2009, the U.S. Union of Concerned Scientists demonstrated that the yields of GM soybeans and corn have increased only marginally, if at all. The report, “Failure to Yield“, found out that increases in yields for both crops between 1995 and 2008 were largely due to traditional breeding or improvements in agricultural practices.

“Failure to Yield” also analyses the potential role in increasing food production over the next few decades, and concludes that “it makes little sense to support genetic engineering at the expense of (traditional, organic) technologies that have proven to substantially increase yields, especially in many developing countries.”

Additionally, the authors say, “recent studies have shown that organic and similar farming methods that minimize the use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers can more than double crop yields at little cost to poor farmers in such developing regions as Sub-Saharan Africa.”

Yet another ground for criticism is the fact that Bill Gates has repeated an often refuted legend about the risk of extinction of the banana variety Cavendish, grown all over the world for the North American market.

In his blog, Gates claims that “a blight has spread among plantations in Asia and Australia in recent years, badly damaging production of … Cavendish. This disease, a fungus, hasn’t spread to Latin America yet, but if it does, bananas could get a lot scarcer and more expensive in North America and elsewhere.”

The risk of extinction, however, is practically inexistent, as the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), among other institutions, had already shown in 2003.

“What is happening is the inevitable consequence of growing one genotype on a large scale,” said Eric Kueneman, at the time head of FAO’s Crop and Grassland Service. That is, monoculture is the main cause of the fungus.

“The Cavendish banana is a “dessert type” banana that is cultivated mostly by the large-scale banana companies for international trade,” recalled Kueneman, today an independent consultant on agriculture.

On the other hand, as FAO numbers show, the Cavendish banana is important in world trade, but accounts for only 10 percent of bananas produced and consumed globally. Virtually all commercially important plantations grow this single genotype, and by so doing, make the fruit vulnerable to diseases. As FAO said in 2003, “fortunately, small-scale farmers around the world have maintained a broad genetic pool which can be used for future banana crop improvement.”

Actually, the most frequent reasons for malnutrition and starvation can be found in food access, itself a consequence of poverty, inequity and social injustice. Thus, as Bob Phelps, founder of Gene Ethics, says, “the challenge to feed everyone well is much more than adding one or two key nutrients to an impoverished diet dominated by a staple food or two.”

The same goes for the genome sequencing of bulls and cows, says Ottmar Distl, professor at the Institute for Animal Breeding and Genetics at the University of Hannover. “Some years ago, we thought that it would impossible to obtain more than 1,000 kilograms of milk per year per cow,” Distl said. “Today, it is normal to milk 7,000 kilograms, and even as much as 10,000 kilograms per year.”

But such performance has a price – most such “optimised” cows calve only twice in their lives and die quite young.

And yet, the leading researchers of the “1000 bull genomes project” look at further optimising the cows’ and bulls’ performance by genetic manipulation of the cattle in order to, as they say in their report, meet the world-wide forecasted, rising demand for milk and meat.

Distl disagrees. “Whoever increases the milk output hasn’t yet done anything against worldwide malnutrition and hunger.” In addition, he warned, the constant optimisation of some races can lead to the extinction of other lines, thus affecting the populations depending precisely on those seldom older races.

It goes without saying that such an extinction would hardly serve the interests of the world’s consumers.

Nabi Ahmed, a dairy farmer in Aliabad, with his cows, a few of whom were artificially inseminated. Credit: Muhammad Hadi/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Mar 16 2013 (IPS)

Mohammad Ali’s routine has not changed in over three decades. A small dairy farmer in the village of Aliabad, in the Narowal district of Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province, he wakes at sunrise and walks to the barn to milk his three cows manually, stopping only for a breakfast of unleavened bread and tea heavily laced with milk before getting back to work.

Unfazed by the multitude of flies hovering around the stainless steel milk buckets, he carefully transfers their contents to an aluminium container and, securing it firmly on his motorbike, heads off to the nearest shop that purchases 14 litres of milk from him every day.

For many years, the forty-year-old farmer had accepted that each of his cows would produce no more than three to four litres of milk a day, hardly enough to put food on the table and clothes on his back.

Until he heard of Jassar Farms, that is. Located in a village by the same name just two kilometres away, as Ali learnt from his neighbour, cows on Jassar farm produce three times the quantity of milk as the cattle in Aliabad.

Run by Shahzad Iqbal, a 43-year-old social entrepreneur, this “miracle” farm – on which over 500 of the 600 cows produce 12 to 14 litres a day – began in 2007, based on a scientific model and backed by a sound business plan.

“I began by importing the embryos of pure exotic bulls instead of the more common practice of importing elite cows from the United States or Australia that cost thousands of dollars,” Iqbal told IPS.

He then used local cows as surrogates and once the first generation was born, started crossbreeding them with his own herd.

Iqbal sees great potential in Pakistan’s dairy and livestock industry, which engages roughly 20 percent of Pakistan’s population. About 8.5 million small and landless families in rural areas comprise the bulk of the dairy and livestock sector, with 35 to 40 million people dependent on it for a living. Most farmers own just three or four cows.

With a herd of 162 million animals, including cows, buffalo, sheep, goats, camels, horses, asses and mules, Pakistan has the world’s fourth largest livestock population.

Speaking to IPS over the phone from Narowal, Iqbal admitted, “The attitudes of these poor farmers are hard to change.” But change is exactly what he is after, convinced that artificial insemination could push milk production up by a minimum of 2,000 litres per animal per year.

This “translates into 80,000 rupees (814 dollars) extra revenue for every farmer from each animal if the milk is sold at the current rate of 40 rupees (.40 dollars) per litre,” he says.

“According to the Economic Survey of Pakistan, livestock generates 40 percent of rural income and 11.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) — if we can double the yield, we can contribute significantly to Pakistan’s GDP,” he added.

If farmers could embrace scientific practices, he said, the country could produce an extra 16 billion litres of milk per year.

Given its advantageous geographic location, Pakistan would then be poised to become a leading supplier of milk and dairy-based products to import-dependent “Islamic countries, from Malaysia to Morocco”.

But based on the 2006 national livestock census, estimated milk production for 2011-12 was just 42 billion litres, scarcely enough to meet the country’s own demand: according to Iqbal, the country spends half a billion dollars annually to import milk-based products.

In an effort to fill this gap in yield, Jassar Farms now produces “high quality” bull semen at an affordable price. Utilising a network of 6,000 technicians, the enterprise distributes 75,000 doses per month from Punjab to Sindh, at a bargain price of 150 to 300 rupees (1.5 to three dollars).

Rizwan Hameed, a marketing graduate working at Iqbal’s farm, told IPS that the quality of this semen can be compared to elite imported varieties but comes at a much cheaper rate.

“Our dose is tenfold cheaper than the comparable imported variety, which is available at 2,000 rupees (20 dollars),” he said.

Keeping it local

Dr. Tanveer Ahmad,  at the Livestock Production and Management Department of the Arid Agriculture University in Rawalpindi, agrees that artificial insemination could result in a genetically superior herd, thereby “decreasing the spread of veneral diseases and increasing the yield”.

But he fears lax market regulations could compromise the health of local breeds.

“There is indiscriminate insemination going on, which could spoil our pure breeds,” he told IPS.

He favours the use of high quality semen taken from local beasts like Sahiwal cattle, which originated here in the Punjab, rather than the imported variety “because our local elite animals are more resistant to the weather and environment, can endure the heat and do not develop ticks the way cross-bred imported varieties do”.

Irfan Elahi, secretary of the Punjab Livestock Department, echoed his words. Talking to IPS over the phone from Lahore, Elahi said a bill has recently been tabled in the Punjab provincial assembly, aimed at regulating semen production units across the province.

There is already a ban on artificial insemination of Sahiwal cattle with exotic semen – these beasts can only be inseminated with better quality semen from the same breed, he added.

The Punjab government has also been actively engaged in livestock research and in 2006 began testing the progeny of Sahiwal cows and the local Nili-Ravi buffalo.

In addition, the Punjab provincial government has set up 976 artificial insemination centres to provide services to smallholders. The Punjab Livestock and Dairy Development Board is training inseminators and provides them motorbikes and insemination kits free of cost to provide services in the field, where the Livestock Department has limited reach.

Still, many farmers are reluctant to embrace the change.

Shafaqat Ali, a member of the Pakistan Dairy Farmers’ Association, believes this is because the practice is cost-prohibitive: “Each imported dose costs anywhere between 6,000 and 25,000 rupees (60 and 250 dollars) and there is no guarantee that one dose will impregnate the animal.

“An impoverished farmer cannot afford to take the risk and so relies on the natural method,” he told IPS over phone from Faisalabad, a city in the Punjab.

In developed countries, 90 to 92 percent of animals are impregnated through artificial insemination, but the rate in Pakistan is as low as seven to eight percent, according to Iqbal.

(END)

Illegal smuggling into Afghanistan has pushed cattle prices so high that many ordinary Muslims will not be able to perform the ritual slaughter during the ‘feast of sacrifice’ this year. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Oct 25 2012 (IPS)

Muslims around the world will soon celebrate Eidul Azha, otherwise known as the ‘feast of the sacrifice’, the second most important festival day on the Islamic calendar.

But this year, scores of Muslims throughout Pakistan will not be able to perform the most sacred rite associated with the festival on Oct. 27 – the sacrifice of cattle – since illegal smuggling to neighbouring Afghanistan has pushed cattle prices to exorbitant levels.

Eidul Azha is celebrated to mark the belief that prophet Muhammad Ibrahim readily accepted God’s command to sacrifice his son Hazrat until God sent down a sheep for him to slaughter instead.

“As Muslim we ought to recall that huge sacrifice by slaughtering an animal,” Muhammad Mustafa, a local school teacher, told IPS.

But cattle prices have almost doubled since last year. As the time for the festival draws near, “demand for animals has risen on both sides of the border,” Mustafa added.

Last year, a buffalo that sold for about 300 dollars is today not even available for 500 dollars.

Since cattle breeders earn more from smuggling the animals to Afghanistan than they would if they sold the animals locally, the illegal trade is flourishing.

Pakistan currently has a surplus of 2.23 million cattle, which had hitherto been earmarked for export to Afghanistan, since the latter had zero local production of animals last year – a lingering impact of the 1979 Russian invasion and subsequent conflict that has decimated many industries.

Livestock director for the north western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Muhammad Sultan, told IPS that close to 10,000 animals are illegally exported to Afghanistan every month, which has also forced up the prices of milk and poultry.k

On Jul. 23, the Peshawar High Court (PHC) suspended all export permits issued by the federal government and ordered the confiscation of cattle destined for Afghanistan, in a bid to protect local consumers.

Since 1979, “Afghanistan (has been) totally dependent on Pakistan for food and other basic needs but the court’s ban on transportation of cattle and poultry to Afghanistan worked to some extent,” Muhammad Khan, a Peshawar-based trader told IPS.

According to Khan, local businessmen are the main beneficiaries of this trade, which travels along the 2,400-kilometre-long porous border.

“The higher prices are hampering people’s ability to slaughter animals during the festival. The PHC order (created) some obstacles to the practice but the business continues because it is so profitable,” Khan said.

A change in tradition

Over 10,000 animals are smuggled out of Pakistan into neighbouring Afghanistan every month. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

Locals here told IPS they roamed animal markets pointlessly last week but were forced to return home empty-handed because no one could afford the sky-high prices.

Zubair Shah, a civil servant, told IPS he has visited numerous markets over the last three days to purchase a sheep or a goat but the prices are such that he won’t be able to slaughter an animal this Eid.

“This is shocking for my family. Every year for the past decade we have slaughtered an animal (and donated) two-thirds of the meat to poor people. It seems that this year we will be getting meat or mutton from someone else,” he said.

He is not alone in his plight. Others, like the mechanic Gul Meer, have taken loans to buy cattle for 40 percent more than they paid last year.

“Even if it means I have to sell my wife’s gold ornaments, I will buy an animal for this is the only way to win Allah’s pleasure,” Mustafa vowed.

Meer believes the problem has been prolonged by the Pakistan government’s failure to impose harsh penalties on traders who continue to flout the smuggling ban.

The government has already seized 33,000 kilogrammes of illegal meat since the ban was imposed three months ago.

“We have also confiscated 800 animals, including oxen, buffalo, sheep and goats from smugglers near border areas to control the prices and (protect) local consumers so they can acquire an animal to sacrifice on Eidul Azha,” Sultan told IPS.

Government efforts to clamp down on the practice have yielded some results. Prices of poultry have come down, according to Sultan.

“Before the ban, one kilogramme of chicken cost six dollars, but the price has now come down to four dollars after the court’s directives,” he said.

Still, the province continues to face deficits in milk and poultry products.

Ayub Sattar, a mason on University Road, says that prices have always been high during the festival time, but this year has been exceptionally hard.

“Last year we (could get) a sheep for 150 dollars. A sheep of the same size now sells for 250 dollars, far out of my price range,” he told IPS.

Some people have decided to pool their resources and purchase oxen, camels and buffaloes communally, with plans to share the meat between their families.

“This year (we bought) cattle for 520 dollars in the market when last year we paid 380 dollars for the same animal,” Liaqat Ali, who is sharing an animal with five others this year, told IPS.

Dr. Tariq Ali, a veterinarian in Peshawar, told IPS that Pakistanis usually slaughter between five and six million animals at this time of year.

“Farmers in neighbouring Afghanistan will remain dependent on Pakistan’s animals and poultry in the future too. Therefore, it’s up to the government (here) to stop this illegal trade and allow the transportation only of surplus animals via legal routes,” he stressed.

(END)