Latest agriculture emissions data show rise of factory farms
Within the animal agriculture sector, carbon dioxide emissions increased by 16.2 percent, methane emissions by 14.4 percent and nitrous oxide emissions by 7.3 percent since 1990, the EPA reported. Methane is 28 times as potent as carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide is nearly 300 times as potent.
BEN LILLISTON: ‘New data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows a steady increase in agriculture-related greenhouse gas emissions, much of it linked to industrial systems of crop production and the rise of factory farm systems of animal production. The annually updated GHG data is designed to track U.S. emissions related to the Paris Climate Agreement and to inform national and state-level climate policy… While emissions in many sectors are declining, those from the agriculture sector have increased more than 10 percent since 1990, according to the EPA.
The agency found that agriculture accounted for 8.4 percent of U.S. emissions in 2017. That percentage does not include on-farm energy and fuel use (counted in the energy section of the inventory), nor does it count emissions related to shifts in cropland (counted in the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry section), the production of ammonia fertilizer (included in the Industrial Processes section of the report), nor other elements of the food system related to transport, processing and waste.
Within the agriculture sector, carbon dioxide emissions increased by 16.2 percent, methane emissions by 14.4 percent and nitrous oxide emissions by 7.3 percent since 1990, the EPA reported. Methane is 28 times as potent as carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide is nearly 300 times as potent.
The increase in methane emissions mirrors the rapid expansion of factory farm in the U.S. over the last two decades, where thousands of animals are raised in confined spaces and include massive manure lagoons. Ruminant animals like cattle are the major source of agricultural methane emissions because of their unique digestive systems. Enteric fermentation emissions, primarily from beef and dairy cattle, have risen 6.9 percent since 1990. “This increase in [methane] emissions from 1990 to 2017 generally follows the increasing trends in cattle populations,” found the EPA’. SOURCE…
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