ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

The expansion of the livestock pastoral sector has had a

WHERE ARE THE
substantial and negative long-term influence on
Australia's environment. Pastoral farming has
PASTURES? PASTORAL
contributed to land clearing. Overall alterations toward
the Australian environment by the 1980's reduced the
forested areas of the continent down to 5%.
As seen in this map,
pastures do not occupy
much of Australia, with
FARMING
Creation of pastures that causes land clearing irrigated pastures only
increased in the 1950's, and this peaked in the covering 10,011km^2,
1970s, where extensive areas of land were wiped for about 0.13% of the land.
pasture development in Queensland.
Around 517,000 hectares of land Pastures are located in
were cleared anually during the the grasslands biome,
1980s, and in recent years, 93% of which is characterised by
deforestation and land clearing overall lowly elevated
(668,000ha) in Queensland has areas and extensive
been for pasture conversion. plains.
Although pastoral farming
contributes to Pastures are located in grasslands, as the
environmental issues, it also grasslands biome provide the most nutritious and
experience different high-quality food base for grazing livestock. As seen
concerns itself, especially in the first map, pastures of Australia are mostly in
water quality problems. One the southern regions. This is due to the fact that
example is the threat of the centre of Australia is comprised of desert and
blue-green algae. conditions that grass cannot grow in, and the
By drinking water that contains blue-green algae (which northern section of the country is closer to the
carries toxin), livestock (such as sheep and cattle) can equator, meaning the temperature is much higher,
become poisoned. and can be unsuitable for pastures at times.
Water salinity changes over time in between seasons, Pastures fare the best in warmer temperatures(12-
and can become a growing threat if not paid attention 30 degrees Celsius), on the condition that there is
to. As salts left on dry creek beds during the summer are sufficient moisture. The average rainfall for
pushed downstream, stream salinity can rise following grassland biomes in Australia is around 30-80mm
early rains. Increases in water salinity are typically of rainfall. High concentrations of intense rain on
connected to clearance of land, which allows more salt pastures can turn into run-off, where the water
to enter water sources. Each animal has a certain does not enter the soil and can cause soil erosion.
tolerance to water salinity levels that should not be Owing to this, pastures should not be in areas of
breached. high rainfall.
 EVALUATION
Robotic milkers are certainly an effective use of
computer technology, reducing labor and demands,
more time flexible, more efficient, and keep up the
health of cows. However, they may malfunction, so a
worker needs to be on call 24/7, the cows take time
to warm up to the machines, and cleaning may
disrupt cow movement.
Progeny is also a reliable way to aid the process of
food production, as genetically modified herds will
vastly outpeform others. However, EPD's must be
approached carefully without too much aggression
to be able to reach the desired features.
Methane emissions greatly contribute to global
warming. However, there are many ways to
combat this. The issue of resource consumption
can also be solved by this next strategy.
Husbandry, which an umbrella term for animal
feeding, feed supplements and pasture
improvement is an important factor that
increases the efficiency and reduces the pollution
of food production. Simple startegies such as
early breeding (breeding as soon as possible to
reduce methane emissions), improving health
(infected and diseased animals will not perform
as efficiently and keeping their health up will
reduce methane emissions), and genetically
selecting animals will require less resources.
This information is then refined to help guide sire
selection
This essentially creates a
cross breed of cows that
carry the perfect
genetics for food
production.
IMPACT ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Although the common conception is that pollution
is mainly caused by machinery, in pastoral farming,
livestock methane emissions are more prominent.
70% of the greenhouse emissions by the
agricultural sector and 11% of national
greenhouse emissions are caused by livestock
emissions. Livestock emissions are now the third
largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
Livestock that are ruminant (e.g. cattle, sheep)
have specific digestive systems that take in coarse
plants (grass), and releases methane through
digestion. This is a major problem as methane can
be a dangerous air pollutant, causing 1 million
deaths a year.
Beef also requires much more resources to
produce food. Ruminant animals do not have high
rates of growth and reproduction, so require more
food, therefore more land, which creates a large
carbon cost.
Beef and land
both emit 20
times more
greenhouse
has emissions
than plant
proteins.
FOOD PRODUCTION STRATEGIES
There are multiple strategies used to increase
food production in pastoral farming.
Examples of these include beef progey and
robotic milking.
Robotic milking is an automated method for
cows in pastoral farming, enabling them to
feed, drink, and be milked without the need of
human attention or human schedules. In this
strategy, diets that are formulated by
computers are automatically fed to the cows,
and the cows are then milked by a machine,
whenever they intend to. These machines can
also track the wellbeing of the cows, as well as
supplement them. Sensors attach themselves
to the teats of a cow, milk them, sanitise them
(to reduce chances of contracting mastitis,
and detaches from the cow.
In addition to
increased
milking
efficiency,
the
machines clean the environment, cow stress
is reduced and health is improved.
Progeny, also known as EPD's (Expected
Progeny DIfferences), is the application of
technology to genetically improve meeting
beef demands. To be specific, they are
predictions of the genetic transferring
chances of a parent to its child, and this
information can be used as a tool to create
the perfect offspring for beef production. A
number of traits and measurement taken
from an animal will be submitted to breed
associations.