Explore Official Dialogue Feedback

Grazing Livestock: Building Sustainable Protein Supply Chains

Geographical focus: Canada

Major focus

As 2021 marks the first world food summit in 25 years, actors in the global food system, including the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) and the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) are following closely. A key concern of Canadian beef producers and their stakeholders is the global forum’s focus on reducing meat consumption for environmental and health reasons. There are unquestionably nutritional and environmental benefits to the production and consumption of grazing livestock products, and it is feared these benefits are being overshadowed by a global anti-meat narrative. CCA and NCC ... Read morehave convened an independent dialogue with the goal of ensuring these benefits are part of global conversation. “Our sustainability practices in Canada are already unparalleled and should be looked to as an example. Painting a production system with one brush will not lead to the most globally sustainable outcomes. What’s more, even though we are leaders in sustainable beef production, we focus on continuous improvement.” This dialogue began with the principle that livestock, particularly grazing livestock, has a beneficial place in the food system but challenged participants to critically reflect on continuous improvement and what is needed to achieve increasingly ambitious targets. The dialogue was thematically designed to respond to Action Track 2, Shift to Sustainable Consumption Patterns. Action Track 2 was chosen as it encompasses the breadth of the supply chain, from production to consumption, something the convening organizations were well-positioned to speak to. Moreover, Action Track 2 emphasizes reducing food waste, a niche grazing livestock are excellently suited for. Entitled Grazing Livestock: Building Sustainable Protein Supply Chains the three-part dialogue series explored the vital role that grazing livestock play in providing both nutritious and nature positive solutions for Canada. The event brought together a diverse set of stakeholders for a bold, solutions-oriented discussion on sustainable diets. The sessions discussed best practices and challenged attendees to answer what’s next, what’s missing and how the sector can do better. In keeping with the UN’s recommendations, inclusivity was incorporated throughout all stages of planning. In choosing to have a grazing livestock conversation, various livestock producers were invited and included in the dialogue, including sheep, beef, bison and goat; roughly 30% of participants were primary producers. Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations (ENGOs) were also strongly represented. There was a healthy presence of academia from both a production and consumption perspective. Federal and provincial policy makers were at the table, as was the supply chain. In all, more than 100 diverse stakeholders came together to reflect on grazing livestock’s role in the food system and what is required for continuous improvement. These dialogues also followed the recommended format for Independent Dialogues, with half of each 2-hour session devoted to small group discussion. Read less

Action Track(s): 2

Keywords: Environment and Climate

Independent Dialogue

Grazing Livestock: Building Sustainable Protein Supply Chains

Geographical focus: Canada

Main findings

Despite a broad conversation spanning the breadth of the supply chain, key themes resurfaced in each session: 1. Producer incentives for environmental practices: Participants noted a link between environmental practices and a producers’ economic well-being. While the argument of ‘doing what is right’ is strong and resonates with many producers, a sustainable solution is one that compensates producers for their environmental endeavors. Compensation ensures that producers remain competitive, and thus able to stay in business and continue doing (and improving) on best management practices. ... Read more“Greatest challenge for conservation groups is loss of habitat which is driven by economics. Best way to conserve grasslands is ensuring that livestock industry and those using these lands remain profitable.” 2. The importance of collaboration: Collaboration was identified as key to achieving environmental outcomes. Collaboration includes between industries, between academia and producers, different stakeholders and across supply-chains. Whatever environmental initiative, framework or metric proposed, it will be more successful where it is created in collaboration with various interest groups. 3. No one-size-fits-all solution: Participants balked at the notion that there is any one silver-bullet to ‘improving the food system’. The food system is too complex to have broad global policy recommendations. Regional differences must be taken into account when recommending environmental best-practices. There is the recognition that best-practices may even differ from farm to farm, let alone from country to country. “Livestock markets contribute to the overall system; removing one part of the system will have unintended consequences, and making sweeping global dietary or food production recommendations doesn’t account for the variety of situations, challenges/realities in different areas” 4. The role of government: There is a strong role for government in creating policy that enables sustainable production and consumption however any such policy must be created with a ‘food-systems’ lens to avoid inadvertent net-negative outcomes. Such as, for example, the proposed Canadian greenhouse gas offset credit system and its potential to drive unintentional native grasslands conversion. Governments can play a key role in research for cross-cutting environmental information (i.e. valuation of ecosystem goods and services as one example) which the private sector can then use for benchmarking. Flowing therefrom, governments can provide assistance with respect to research & technology transfer and ensuring producers are correctly incentivized to adopt beneficial practices. 5. Diversity is imperative to building resiliency: Attendees noted that there are many benefits to integrating different systems, and indeed, integrated systems are more resilient ones. By integrating field and livestock production, one operations’ waste becomes another operations’ nutrients. Croplands which incorporate a livestock component are more drought tolerant than lands which do not. “By using sheep, the sector helps create a biodiverse environment and reduce amount of GHGs generated vs mechanical grazing of vegetation. Sheep and goats are an effective tool against invasive species. When sheep graze orchards or vineyards the fruit is healthier and there is reduced pesticide usage. Benefits of livestock production like these need to be considered.” 6. Education of consumers: Participants alluded to the importance of consumers several times. This was in the context of the perceived divide between consumers and production practices as well as the challenges of conveying complex environmental initiatives to the consumer. Consumers were identified as imperative to ensuring ‘sustainable consumption’ because consumers drive market trends and are the buyers of the product. Game Changing solution? (Please note, more detail is included in the attached report) The Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (CRSB) was mentioned as an example or embodiment of the key themes several times. The CRSB is an initiative that embraces complexity, fosters stakeholder involvement and collaboration to identify solutions. As all of these elements are required to advance the food system, CCA and NCC propose the framework upon which the CRSB rests as the “game-changing solution” sought by the UN Food Summit process. One of the focuses for Action Track 2 is the reduction of food waste and in achieving this objective, grazing livestock are a natural fit. Ruminants turn products that are inedible by humans into a nutrient-dense protein option. Read less

Action Track(s): 2

Keywords: Environment and Climate, Policy

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181