Abstract

NIETO, M.I; GUZMAN, M.L  and  STEINAKER, D. Emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero: simulación de un sistema ganadero de carne típico de la región central Argentina. RIA. Rev. investig. agropecu. [online]. 2014, vol.40, n.1, pp.92-101. ISSN 1669-2314.

The global food demand stimulates livestock production to ensure food availability, but it may also represent a problem in terms of increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. There are clear evidences that the cattle industry directly and indirectly contributes, in an important way, to these gases emissions. However, it is unclear the relative contribution of the each subsystems of livestock production, such as breeding, calf rearing and fattening. Here we estimate the emissions of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) produced by the three subsystems in a typical beef livestock system in San Luis province at central Argentina. For these estimates we used the level 2 of the methodology recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2006). The average emissions for the entire system were 1.500 kg eq-CO₂, per animal and year. From this total, 76% are CH4 and 24% are N₂O emissions. In the breeding and rearing subsystems, the major emission also corresponds to CH4, but in the fattening stage, N₂O emissions are higher. In breeding, lactating cow was the animal class that had the most amounts of CH4 emissions (2.407 kg eq-CO₂ /animal), followed by bulls class (2.306 kg eq-CO2/animal); in rearing, steers were the class that increased emission of CH4 (1.100 kg eq-CO₂ /animal) and N₂O (324 kg eq-CO₂/animal), produced. In fattening, culled cows (cow breeding last calf) (728 kg eq-CO2/ animal) emitted larger amount of N2O followed by the bull class (549 kg eq-CO₂/animal). With the analysis of partial least squares regression (PLS) a close relationship between the predictor variables (consumption and animal weight) as well as variable responses (CH4 and N₂O) was observed. In turn, the CH4 is the variable that is associated with the classification variables (livestock subsystems) observed greater relationship with farming. These emissions of greenhouse gases produced by cattle could be reduced by applying different technological strategies: i) related to food handling ruminant diet ii) concerning the composition of the rodeo conducting a comprehensive selection of animal classes avoiding unproductive animals; iii) to monitor animal health and iv) seeking for adequate animal genetics to the environment and the animal products to be obtained.

Keywords : Methane; Nitrous oxide; Cattle beef systems Central Region of Argentina; Climate change.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )