Assessment of yield gaps on global grazed-only permanent pasture using climate binning

Author(s):Show less -

Monteiro, Leonardo A. ^{[1, 2]} ; Allee, Andrew M. ^[3] ; Campbell, Eleanor E. ^{[4, 1]} ; Lynd, Lee R. ^{[3, 5]} ; Soares, Johnny R. ^[1] ; Jaiswal, Deepak ^{[1, 6]} ; de Castro Oliveira, Julianne ^[1] ; dos Santos Vianna, Murilo ^[1] ; Morishige, Ashley E. ^[7] ; Figueiredo, Gleyce K. D. A. ^[1] ; Lamparelli, Rubens A. C. ^[5] ; Mueller, Nathaniel D. ^[8] ; Gerber, James ^[9] ; Cortez, Luis A. B. ^[5] ; Sheehan, John J. ^{[1, 10]}

Affiliation

^[1] Univ Estadual Campinas, Sch Agr Engn FEAGRI, Campinas, SP - Brazil

^[2] Swedish Univ Agr Sci, Dept Crop Prod Ecol, Uppsala - Sweden

^[3] Dartmouth Coll, Thayer Sch Engn, Hanover, NH 03755 - USA

^[4] Univ New Hampshire, Earth Syst Res Ctr, Durham, NH 03824 - USA

^[5] Univ Campinas UNICAMP, Interdisciplinary Ctr Energy Planning NIPE, Campinas, SP - Brazil

^[6] Univ Illinois, Carl R Woese Inst Genom Biol, Urbana, IL - USA

^[7] MIT, Dept Mech Engn, Cambridge, MA 02139 - USA

^[8] Colorado State Univ, Dept Ecosyst Sci & Sustainabil, Ft Collins, CO 80523 - USA

^[9] Univ Minnesota, Inst Environm, St Paul, MN 55108 - USA

^[10] Colorado State Univ, Dept Chem & Biol Engn, Ft Collins, CO 80523 - USA

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY; v. 26, n. 3 JAN 2020.
• Web of Science Citations: 0

Abstract

To meet rising demands for agricultural products, existing agricultural lands must either produce more or expand in area. Yield gaps (YGs)-the difference between current and potential yield of agricultural systems-indicate the ability to increase output while holding land area constant. Here, we assess YGs in global grazed-only permanent pasture lands using a climate binning approach. We create a snapshot of circa 2000 empirical yields for meat and milk production from cattle, sheep, and goats by sorting pastures into climate bins defined by total annual precipitation and growing degree-days. We then estimate YGs from intra-bin yield comparisons. We evaluate YG patterns across three FAO definitions of grazed livestock agroecosystems (arid, humid, and temperate), and groups of animal production systems that vary in animal types and animal products. For all subcategories of grazed-only permanent pasture assessed, we find potential to increase productivity several-fold over current levels. However, because productivity of grazed pasture systems is generally low, even large relative increases in yield translated to small absolute gains in global protein production. In our dataset, milk-focused production systems were found to be seven times as productive as meat-focused production systems regardless of animal type, while cattle were four times as productive as sheep and goats regardless of animal output type. Sustainable intensification of pasture is most promising for local development, where large relative increases in production can substantially increase incomes or ``spare{''} large amounts of land for other uses. Our results motivate the need for further studies to target agroecological and economic limitations on productivity to improve YG estimates and identify sustainable pathways toward intensification. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 17/08970-0 - Pasture potential and subsequent production of energy crops
• Grantee: Leonardo Amaral Monteiro
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctorate
• FAPESP's process: 16/08742-4 - Post Doc on agave growth model, at the initiative "a global sustainable bioenergy (GSB)": environmental and spatial analysis of pastureland intensification for bioenergy
• Grantee: Deepak Jaiswal
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctorate
• FAPESP's process: 16/20307-1 - Daycent modeling and comparisons with DNDC modeling approaches for GSB initiative: geospatial & environmental analysis of pastureland intensification for bioenergy Task II
• Grantee: Rubens Augusto Camargo Lamparelli
• Support type: Research Grants - Visiting Researcher Grant - International
• FAPESP's process: 18/11052-5 - Development and preliminary application of a multi-crop global energy crop yield model on pastureland
• Grantee: Murilo dos Santos Vianna
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctorate
• FAPESP's process: 17/25023-4 - Daycent modeling of soil carbon and greenhouse gas emissions with pasture intensification and sugarcane production: geospatial & environmental analysis of pastureland intensification for bioenergy task II
• Grantee: Rubens Augusto Camargo Lamparelli
• Support type: Research Grants - Visiting Researcher Grant - International
• FAPESP's process: 17/06037-4 - Global Sustainable Bioenergy initiative: geospatial and environmental analysis of pastureland intensification for bioenergy
• Grantee: Julianne de Castro Oliveira
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctorate
• FAPESP's process: 16/08741-8 - Post Doc on pasture systems: potential for intensification around the globe
• Grantee: Johnny Rodrigues Soares
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctorate
• FAPESP's process: 14/26767-9 - Global Sustainable Bioenergy initiative: geospatial & environmental analysis of pastureland intensification for bioenergy
• Grantee: John Joseph Sheehan
• Support type: Research Projects - SPEC Program