Environmental amenities and impact of French farms for beef production

Abstract

This paper is aimed at providing a comprehensive review of environmental issues related to beef cattle farming in France, including available scientific knowledge and statistics. Greenhouse gas emissions, water and soil pollution, use of natural resources (energy, phosphorus, water), land use, and animal and plant biodiversity are addressed. Methodology and indicators for evaluation are presented and discussed. When the results were expressed as kg beef, most impacts were due to suckling cow farms (calf-to-weanling) due to the long breeding time necessary to produce weanlings. The results were, however, very different when they were expressed per hectare, when carbon storage by soil was taken into account and when the positive impacts of these systems on biodiversity were included in the analysis. Despite a certain advantage for making a transition towards agroecology due to the large part of permanent grasslands, weanling cow farms have been evolving for 20 years towards the expansion of their structures at the expense of their sustainability.