Comparative analysis of environmental impacts of agricultural production systems, agricultural input efficiency, and food choice
Open accessAbstract
Global agricultural feeds over 7 billion people, but is also a leading cause of environmental degradation. Understanding how alternative agricultural production systems, agricultural input efficiency, and food choice drive environmental degradation is necessary for reducing agriculture's environmental impacts. A meta-analysis of life cycle assessments that includes 742 agricultural systems and over 90 unique foods produced primarily in high-input systems shows that, per unit of food, organic systems require more land, cause more eutrophication, use less energy, but emit similar greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) as conventional systems; that grass-fed beef requires more land and emits similar GHG emissions as grain-feed beef; and that low-input aquaculture and non-trawling fisheries have much lower GHG emissions than trawling fisheries. In addition, our analyses show that increasing agricultural input efficiency (the amount of food produced per input of fertilizer or feed) would have environmental benefits for both crop and livestock systems. Further, for all environmental indicators and nutritional units examined, plant-based foods have the lowest environmental impacts; eggs, dairy, pork, poultry, non-trawling fisheries, and non-recirculating aquaculture have intermediate impacts; and ruminant meat has impacts ∼100 times those of plant-based foods. Our analyses show that dietary shifts towards low-impact foods and increases in agricultural input use efficiency would offer larger environmental benefits than would switches from conventional agricultural systems to alternatives such as organic agriculture or grass-fed beef.
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Most previous studies on sustainable meat have examined a limited range of aspects.
“Most previous studies on sustainable meat have examined a limited range of aspects (e.g., Clark and Tilman 2017; Poore and Nemecek 2018)”
From Delivering “less but better” meat in practice—a case study of a farm in agroecological transition (2022) · cites this paper as Clark and Tilman 2017
The ‘Environmental Impacts of different foods’ section says earlier dietary-impact analyses were limited to animal-based foods or a single environmental indicator. The Conclusions also note that few life-cycle assessments examined impacts such as water use or biodiversity. These passages support a narrower point about the scope of environmental analyses, but do not establish that most previous studies on sustainable meat examined a limited range of aspects overall. (LLM, conf=0.82)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThese results are in line with previous findings that extensively reared ruminants tend to contribute more GHG emissions per kilogram of product.
“These results are in line with previous findings that extensively reared ruminants to tend to contribute more GHG emissions per kilogram of product (Clark and Tilman 2017).”
From Delivering “less but better” meat in practice—a case study of a farm in agroecological transition (2022) · cites this paper as Clark and Tilman 2017
The “Grass-fed versus grain-fed beef” section reports that grass-fed beef averaged 19% higher GHG emissions per unit of food, although the difference was not statistically significant (p = .2218). This supports a tendency for higher emissions in grass-fed beef, but the paper’s comparison does not establish that tendency for extensively reared ruminants generally. (LLM, conf=0.84)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredReviews and meta-analyses conclude that pasture-finished systems have higher average production emissions than grain-finished systems.
“Reviews and meta-analyses of these studies conclude that pasture-finished systems have higher average production emissions [4, 6, 7].”
From Carbon opportunity cost increases carbon footprint advantage of grain-finished beef (2023) · cites this paper as [4]
Pasture-finished systems have higher land-use intensity on average than grain-finished systems.
“Recent meta-analyses show that pasture-finished systems have higher land-use intensity (measured as area per unit production) on average, since the amount of pasture needed in the finishing stage of pasture-finished cattle is much larger than the amount of cropland needed to provide grain for the finishing stage of grain-finished cattle [4, 6].”
From Carbon opportunity cost increases carbon footprint advantage of grain-finished beef (2023) · cites this paper as [4]
The finding that production emissions are 20% higher on pasture-finished operations than on grain-finished operations is consistent with Clark and Tilman (2017), which found average emissions were 19% higher though their estimate was not statistically significant.
“Our finding that production emissions are 20% higher on pasture-finished operations than on grain-finished operations is consistent with Clark and Tilman (2017) [4], which found average emissions were 19% higher though their estimate was not statistically significant.”
From Carbon opportunity cost increases carbon footprint advantage of grain-finished beef (2023) · cites this paper as Clark and Tilman (2017) [4]
Grain-fed, high-input/high-output beef systems often show lower climate impact than grass-based, low-input systems, because animals with a higher growth rate reach slaughter weight faster and emit less CH4 per kg beef produced.
“Grain-fed, high-input/high-output beef systems often show lower climate impact than grass-based, low-input systems, as animals with a higher growth rate reach slaughter weight faster and emit less CH 4 per kg beef produced (Clark and Tilman, 2017).”
From Time-dependent climate impact of beef production – can carbon sequestration in soil offset enteric methane emissions? (2022) · cites this paper as Clark and Tilman, 2017
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- Authors
- Clark, M., & Tilman, D.
- Affiliations
- University of Minnesota (US)
- Corresponding author
- Clark, Michael
- Venue
- Environmental Research Letters
- Publisher
- IOP Publishing
- Published
- 2017-06-01
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 064016
- ISSN
- 1748-9326 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2625424880
- Cited by
- 989
- References
- 64
- Citations by year
- 2026: 68 · 2025: 107 · 2024: 108 · 2023: 116 · 2022: 149 · 2021: 137 · 2020: 122 · 2019: 105 · 2018: 61 · 2017: 12 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 61.85
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Environmental Research Letters (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Balzan Foundation
- McKnight Presidential Chair
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Chemistry › Sustainable Agricultural Systems Analysis
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Environmental Impact and Sustainability
- Keywords
- environmental impact of agriculture, organic farming, conventional farming, food choice, greenhouse gas emissions, eutrophication, land use, grass-fed beef, grain-fed beef, aquaculture, plant-based diet, ruminant meat, life cycle assessment, dietary change
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
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