Contemporary Issues in Food Animal Production

What are the contemporary issues in food animal production?

• Greenhouse Gas Emissions

• Genetic Engineering (CRISPR/Cas9)

• Red Meat Consumption

• Antibiotic & Hormone Use

• Land Use

• Confinement Housing

Greenhouse gases

• Methane Emissions

• Ruminants

• 11.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from livestock (FAO)

Methane

CH4

What is the atmospheric lifetime of methane?

12 years

How much stronger is methane than CO2?

86x (more radiation)

Where do 96% of methane emissions come from in livestock?

Burps as result of ruminal fermentation

What is methane an outlet for?

Free hydrogens to be “bound up” from fermentation 

CRISPR-Cas9 – Embryonic Editing

Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, CRISPR Associated Protein 9

Genetic engineering

Used to inactivate or modify genes

What are some traits that are “created”

• Improve disease resistance

  • PRRS

  • Tuberculosis

• Increased muscle

• Improved heat tolerance

• Remove the gene for horns

• Hypoallergenic eggs

Red meat consumption

• Heart disease

  • Increased saturated fat

  • Increased cholesterol

• Cancer

Positives of consuming red meat

Zinc, protein, iron, and B vitamins

What % of land is used for pasture and range?

29%

What % of land is used for crop land?

17%

Environmental impacts of land use

Deforestation, soil degradation (over grazing), and water pollution

5 things considered in confinement housing

1. Animal space

2. Temperature

3. Manure management

4. Ventilation 

5. Floor conditions

PROP 12-California

California’s requirement for veal calves, breeding pigs, and egg-laying hens to be housed in systems that comply with specific regulations for freedom of movement, cage-free design and specified minimum floor space. Also prohibit farm owner or operator from knowingly engaging in the sale of shell eggs, liquid eggs, whole pork or veal meat from animals housed in a cruel manner

Subtherapeutic Antibiotic Usage

• Feed additive or implant to increase growth and improve feed efficiency

  • Avoids illegal levels of tissue residue and strict withdrawal time before animal can enter food chain

• Improved efficiency decreases land required +manure production

Concerns with sub therapeutic antibiotic usage

Antibiotic resistance in livestock and humans that consume those products

Growth implants

• 70-80%

• Improve average daily gain by 5-15%

• Improve feed efficiency by 5-10%

Estrogen from implant residue levels

• 1lb of implanted beef =11ng

• 1lb of non-implanted beef=8ng

• 1lb of ice cream=3,000 ng

Estrogen production in humans

• Adult man 100,000 nd/d

• Non-pregnant woman 5,000,000 ng/d

Beta-agonists

Repartitioning agents, shift nutrients from fat deposition to lean tissue deposition

Cattle

Optaflexx

Swine

Paylean BUT

• Approved for US consumption

• Banned in international markets

• JBS, Tyson, Smithfield won’t take hogs fed with it

Concerns-residue left in meat that humans consume