Environmental footprints of beef cattle production in the United States
Open accessAbstract
The environmental impacts of beef cattle production and their effects on the overall sustainability of beef have become a national and international concern. Our objective was to quantify important environmental impacts of beef cattle production in the United States. Surveys and visits of farms, ranches and feedlots were conducted throughout seven regions (Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Northern Plains, Southern Plains, Northwest and Southwest) to determine common practices and characteristics of cattle production. These data along with other information sources were used to create about 150 representative production systems throughout the country, which were simulated with the Integrated Farm System Model using local soil and climate data. The simulations quantified the performance and environmental impacts of beef cattle production systems for each region. A farm-gate life cycle assessment was used to quantify resource use and emissions for all production systems including traditional beef breeds and cull animals from the dairy industry. Regional and national totals were determined as the sum of the production system outputs multiplied by the number of cattle represented by each simulated system. The average annual greenhouse gas and reactive N emissions associated with beef cattle production over the past five years were determined to be 243 ± 26 Tg carbon dioxide equivalents (CO 2 e) and 1760 ± 136 Gg N, respectively. Total fossil energy use was found to be 569 ± 53 PJ an…
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The majority of GHG emissions in US beef production systems originate from the grazing phases (cow-calf and stocker), which account for ~70-80% of total beef emissions.
“The majority of GHG emissions in these systems originate from the grazing phases-cow-calf and stocker production-which account for ~70-80% of total beef emissions (Pelton et al., 2024;Rotz et al., 2019).”
From Impact of 10 years of adaptive multi-paddock grazing on soil carbon and beef's greenhouse gas footprint in the US Upper Midwest (2026) · cites this paper as Rotz et al., 2019
We quantified uncertainties in farm-level GHG emissions following procedures previously used, applying ±20% uncertainty for enteric and manure-derived CH4, ±50% for N2O, and ±20% for non-animal direct GHGs, with overall uncertainty calculated as the square root of the sum of squares.
“We quantified uncertainties in farm-level GHG emissions following procedures previously used (Rotz et al., 2019;Stackhouse-Lawson et al., 2012), where uncertainty percentages were assigned to each source following IPCC (2006) based on expert opinion for their Tier 2 methodologies.We applied ±20% uncertainty for enteric and manurederived CH 4 , ±50% for N 2 O, and ± 20% for non-animal direct GHGs (”
From Impact of 10 years of adaptive multi-paddock grazing on soil carbon and beef's greenhouse gas footprint in the US Upper Midwest (2026) · cites this paper as Rotz et al., 2019
The cow-calf phase has the greatest percentage of GHG emissions and land use.
“As others have reported (Beauchemin et al., 2010;Rotz et al., 2019), and similar to our study (Figs.1B and 2), the cow-calf phase has the greatest percentage of GHG emissions and land use.”
From Impact of 10 years of adaptive multi-paddock grazing on soil carbon and beef's greenhouse gas footprint in the US Upper Midwest (2026) · cites this paper as Rotz et al., 2019
Our AMP-FL footprint (25.6 kg CO2-e kg CW-1) matches the regional estimate reported by Rotz et al. (2019) using a Tier 3 process-based model (25.5 kg CO2-e kg CW-1).
“our AMP-FL footprint (25.6 kg CO 2 -e kg CW -1 ) matches the regional estimate reported by Rotz et al. (2019) using a Tier 3 process-based model (25.5 kg CO 2 -e kg CW -1 )”
From Impact of 10 years of adaptive multi-paddock grazing on soil carbon and beef's greenhouse gas footprint in the US Upper Midwest (2026) · cites this paper as Rotz et al. (2019)
LCAs consistently omit soil C from GHG analysis.
“Although our knowledge of management impacts on soil C sequestration is expanding, LCAs consistently omit it from GHG analysis (Rotz et al., 2019).”
From Ecosystem Impacts and Productive Capacity of a Multi-Species Pastured Livestock System (2020) · cites this paper as Rotz et al., 2019
Life cycle emissions for beef cattle in the MSPR were 33.55 kg CO2-e kg CW-1, which is 30% higher than the most current models evaluating business-as-usual beef cattle production systems in the United States.
“Life cycle emissions for beef cattle in the MSPR were 33.55 kg CO 2 -e kg CW -1 .This is 30% higher than the most current models evaluating business-as-usual beef cattle production systems (with grain finishing) in the United States (Rotz et al., 2019).”
From Ecosystem Impacts and Productive Capacity of a Multi-Species Pastured Livestock System (2020) · cites this paper as Rotz et al., 2019
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Invited Review: Methane Sources, Quantification, and Mitigation in Grazing Beef Systems
Thompson, L. R., & Rowntree, J. E. (2020) · Applied Animal Science · doi:10.15232/aas.2019-01951 · Cited by 112 · see citing works
Ecosystem Impacts and Productive Capacity of a Multi-Species Pastured Livestock System
Rowntree, J. E., Stanley, P. L., Maciel, I. C. F., Thorbecke, M., Rosenzweig, S. T., Hancock, D. W., Guzman, A., & Raven, M. R. (2020) · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · doi:10.3389/fsufs.2020.544984 · Cited by 110 · see citing works
“We conducted a whole-farm life cycle assessment (LCA) of an MSPR in the southeastern United States that was originally converted from degraded cropland.”
BackgroundInfluentialThompson, L. R., Maciel, I. C. F., Rodrigues, P. D. R., Cassida, K. A., & Rowntree, J. E. (2021) · Journal of Animal Science · doi:10.1093/jas/skab326 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Garcia, L., Stanley, P. L., Sacramento, J. P., Dillon, J. A., Thorbecke, M., Thompson, L. R., Ambike, V., Sharma, P., Xu, S., Chiavegato, M. B., et al. (2026) · Agricultural Systems · doi:10.1016/j.agsy.2026.104879 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
- Authors
- Rotz, C. A., Asem-Hiablie, S., Place, S., & Thoma, G.
- Affiliations
- Agricultural Research Service (US)
- National Cattlemen's Beef Association (US)
- University of Arkansas at Fayetteville (US)
- Corresponding author
- Rotz, C. Alan
- Venue
- Agricultural Systems
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2019-02
- Volume
- 169
- Pages
- 1-13
- ISSN
- 0308-521X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2902640353
- Cited by
- 259
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 43 · 2025: 42 · 2024: 37 · 2023: 33 · 2022: 34 · 2021: 33 · 2020: 30 · 2019: 7
- FWCI
- 13.17
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Agricultural Systems (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- The Beef Checkoff
- USDA's Agricultural Research Service
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Chemistry › Sustainable Agricultural Systems Analysis
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Agronomy and Crop Science › Livestock Farming and Management
- Keywords
- beef cattle production, environmental impact, greenhouse gas emissions, reactive nitrogen emissions, fossil fuel consumption, blue water consumption, environmental intensity, Integrated Farm System Model
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