ABP beef farm trial unlocks key to lowering carbon emissions

Using superior bulls can lower carbon emissions by 11% and is worth £250 a head, trials carried out by ABP Food Group at its demonstration farm in Shropshire have found.

ABP is now trialling wearable devices to measure and filter methane on individual animals at Bromstead Farm, near Newport.

The farm was bought by the group in 2015 and has become a test-bed for genetic evaluation alongside the group’s second farm in County Wexford.

ABP works in partnership with breeding company Genus, and having an integrated farming model in Blade Farming, which now comprises 25 calf rearers and more than 250 finishers producing 21,000 animals annually.

This has allowed ABP to capture a wealth of animal data up to slaughter to help identify these superior sires.  

See also: Beef sire worth up to €200 more in dairy-cross calf profit

Data on feed intakes, growth rates and health traits are recorded on AgriWebb, along with carcass performance at slaughter. This is then fed back into sires’ estimated breeding values (EBVs).

The use of the automated grading technique Visual Image Analysis in ABP’s slaughterhouse helps provide objective carcass grades, day in, day out, to add to the robust dataset.

At Bromstead, Blade calves are taken from 12 weeks (at weaning) and are finished mainly off forage by 20 months and sent to slaughter at the abattoir in Ellesmere, farm manager Andrew Macleod explains.

About the system

• Calves arrive at Bromstead at 12 weeks (weaning) and slowly transition over 10 days from their 18% crude protein rearer nut onto a forage ration of grass silage, barley, straw, and wheat distillers
• All cattle (aside from those close to finishing) are paddock-grazed from April until October. Grass is plate-measured weekly. Cattle enter covers at 2,800kg dry matter (DM) and leave when grass has been eaten down to 1,700kg DM
• Finishing cattle are fed a 16% crude protein pellet alongside a total mixed ration of grass silage, straw, barley, wheat distillers and molasses
• Feed samples are taken three times a week to try to keep DM intakes consistent
• On average, steers achieve 323kg deadweight and heifers 315kg at 50% killout and classification scores of O+/R

Feed intake records were gathered as part of a trial comparing more than 1,200 Aberdeen Angus-cross steers and heifers up to January 2021, using GrowSafe feed bins for 90 days from nine to 12 months.

Revealing the results at an open day at the unit on 5 October, Richard Phelps, ABP’s group agriculture director and the managing director of Blade Farming, said: “It raises the question around why the age of slaughter is so high. This is one solution – to breed much more efficient cattle that are capable of reaching slaughter at a younger age.”

Next steps 

Genetics is just part of the jigsaw in helping to lower the beef industry’s carbon footprint, says Dean Holroyd, ABP’s group technical and sustainability director.

At Bromstead, the group is now starting to take a more holistic approach to reducing emissions by assessing grazing swards and methane emissions using cutting-edge technology.

Michael Lee, interim vice-chancellor at Harper Adams and an expert in sustainable livestock systems, will be working closely with ABP as part of a new alliance between the meat processor and the university.

To achieve net zero, Prof Lee says the focus of beef farms must be twofold:

1. Reducing emissions that can be controlled, by improving productivity
2. Offsetting or capturing emissions that can’t be directly controlled, through use of natural capital.

© Rebecca Dawes

Bromstead will now look at multispecies swards in a rotational grazing environment and the role these mixed swards might play in greenhouse gas emissions and soil carbon sequestration.

“We need to realise the huge potential livestock systems have in the production of ‘brown gold’ [manure and its role in improving soil health],” Prof Lee says. “Organic returns driven through livestock hold the key to unlocking soil health.”

He quotes research from Rothamsted which shows that 40% of arable soils are degraded compared with just 6% of grassland. “You can’t consider a healthy food system without livestock,” he adds.

A new liquid manure store has been erected as well as a covered muck store to allow the farm to make best use of these valuable by-products.

Zelp masks are helping document methane emissions © Rebecca Dawes

Bromstead started trialling Zelp (Zero emissions livestock project) masks this summer as part of a European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Food-funded, two-year project.

The masks capture, store and neutralise methane, and preliminary trials at Reading University show they can reduce methane emissions by 50%.

The masks will be validated on the farm by comparing data collected through Green Feed feeding stations, which measure gas emitted each time an animal eats.

The hope is that the wearable devices can then be used on animals out at grass to identify the role that grass species and diet play in methane production, as well as enabling the team to determine which bulls produce progeny with lower methane emissions.

Evidence

Until now the beef industry has been on the back foot, defending claims from climate activists about its impact on the environment.

The aim of the trials is to provide much-needed evidence around carbon sequestration and methane emissions to enable farmers to talk positively about the industry, says Mr Phelps.

It is hoped the trials will also set a benchmark to enable farmers to sell carbon credits for sequestration.

“We have a long-term investment in British farms, and we need to address some of the concerns that are out there that are not yet understood,” he says.