Free-range beef found to emit more methane than sheep

摘要

A study of the Australian livestock industry has found that a kilogram of sheep meat, by the time it leaves the processing plant, has emitted about half as much methane (CH_4) as a kilogram of grass-finished beef and about 25% less than feed-lot-finished beef. "The daily rate at which sheep and cattle burp is about the same per kilogram of product, but the cattle do it for longer before we get their meat," explains lead author Gregory M. Peters of the University of New South Wales in Sydney in a telephone interview. Cattle are generally slaughtered after less than three years, which is about twice the life expectancy of sheep, he said.