Move towards sustainable beef for world’s top producers

A new organisation formed by the WWF, McDonalds, Cargill and Walmart amongst others, will look to share sustainable supply chain best practices entitled the ‘Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef’ (GRSB).

The organisation will be an independent non-profit, with Ruaraidh Petre the inaugural President stating, “More efficient, environmentally sustainable approaches to bringing beef from farm to fork will help conserve our planet's finite resources while also supporting our communities and our members' bottom lines.”

Beef production has long been known as one of the most unsustainable and carbon intensive agricultural industries. It has received criticism for its part in the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, where vast swathes of land are cleared for cattle rearing. The methane released by the world’s cattle is also significant; as a gas with 23 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide, the release of methane from the millions of cattle worldwide causes a significant carbon footprint.

Research has shown that a single 550kg cow can emit up to 1,000 litres of gas per day, but that a simple switch to more digestible food sources could reduce emissions by around 25 per cent.

This new organisation will look to go some way to rectifying the situation. Solidaridad, one of the members of the Roundtable, will work with the Dutch government for example, to fund new training and technologies towards improved productivity and efficiency of smallholdings over a four year period.

The hope is that collaborations like this will just be the beginning, with further NGO’s, associations and companies joining in the near future.