The Beef and Lamb Roadmap

The Beef and Lamb Roadmap will outline a route for the English and Welsh beef and lamb sector to achieve net zero by 2050, alongside other environmental goals. It will be a route that supports UK food production and ensures the economic sustainability of the sector.

Key points:

• The roadmap reflects the collective position that the sector is striving to achieve
• It is a ‘living’ document that will change as the sector progresses
• It aims to capture what the sector has already achieved, set new goals and monitor progress
• The focus of the roadmap will first be on greenhouse gases (GHGs) – reducing emissions and increasing carbon sequestration. Wider environmental metrics will be added over time
• It recognises that beef and lamb farmers already deliver multiple ‘public goods’ and seeks to highlight these contributions and any improvements

Tackling climate change is arguably the most pressing global issue of our time. The next few years are seen as a crucial time for action across the whole economy, including agriculture.

The UK is a signatory of the Paris Agreement, which seeks to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5°C. It has made a number of binding commitments as part of this. This includes reducing UK greenhouse gas emissions by at least 81% by 2035 and becoming net zero by 2050.

Agriculture as a total sector is estimated to account for 11% of total UK emissions[i], including 49% of all UK methane emissions (almost entirely from ruminants) and 71% of nitrous oxide emissions but just 1.9% of total UK CO₂ emissions.

However, UK beef and lamb is among the most sustainable, with emissions around one-third lower than the global average. With the UN striving to achieve zero world hunger as well as zero emissions, countries like the UK could provide nutritious animal protein for a lower footprint.

Any route to net zero will require a range of mitigation or abatement strategies – that is, actions that reduce GHG emissions. Many options have already been identified, though some are more ready to go than others. The UN’s Global Roadmap (2023) concluded that the most promising ways to reduce emissions are: increased efficiency and productivity, focused breeding strategies and proactive animal health management.

The reputation of beef and lamb is being challenged by political, environmental and ethical pressures. The roadmap will show how livestock can contribute to the UK’s legally binding target of net zero by 2050. The aim is to reach climate targets, avoid government intervention and keep beef and lamb’s place in future diets.

[i] CAUTION: These figures, like almost all reference data in this area, are presented as CO₂ equivalent using Global Warming Potential 100 (GWP100) methodology to combine various GHGs into a single unit. There are a number of different methodologies which would create a significantly different view of the overall contribution of agriculture and livestock, discussed later in the document.

The roadmap aims to capture the ambition, goals and commitments made towards improving the environmental sustainability of the English and Welsh beef and lamb sector.

It will:

• Show evidence of where the sector is now
• Measure and report progress against industry ambitions
• Identify actions that are evidenced and true
• Identify evidence gaps and obstacles that could prevent us meeting the ambitions so the industry can decide how to tackle them

There are three cross-cutting issues, impacting progress in many areas, that will be considered as part of the roadmap. These present both challenges and opportunities for the sector:

1. Farm data. There are many advantages of real farm data over broad averages, not least the ability of individual farms to understand their impact and act on it. Ongoing work to improve the consistency of farm carbon calculators will be key to this.
2. Counting emissions. Unlike most industries, the vast majority of beef and lamb emissions are not carbon dioxide. Therefore, the different methods used to combine emissions into one figure deliver very different results.
3. Sequestration. This is an important effect of land management, but the science for measuring it is underdeveloped and needs clarity. This can significantly impact the choice and priority of abatement options.

Farmers do much more than produce food. They also provide a range of environmental services that are likely to become more important as we seek to limit climate change and environmental degradation.

The roadmap provides an excellent opportunity to show improvements made by the sector. This evidence will enable the sector to defend, protect and promote the home market. It will add value to exports by positively differentiating from products of other countries.

• Herd numbers have already declined, likely due to policy changes. Since 1990, there has been a 21% and 26% decline in UK cattle and sheep numbers, respectively
• The 2022/3 Farm Business Survey indicated almost all farms in England participated in at least one agri-environment activity, with over half in a specific agri-environment scheme
• High standards of animal health and welfare underpin UK livestock farming. This has the added benefit of increased efficiency lowering environmental impacts
• The UK is at the forefront of genetic improvement in livestock. Again, this reduces animal emissions via improved efficiency and productivity
• UK cattle and sheep are primarily fed on grass. They convert plant material that is indigestible by humans to nutrient-dense food and return fertility to the soil through their manures

Greenhouse gas emissions for both beef and lamb are lower than the global average.

Table 1. Beef and lamb gross emissions per unit of output GWP 100 (kg CO₂e/kg product) and GWP* (kg CO₂we/kg product)

^a Poore and Nemecek, 2018x. There are limited number of data points in each respective data set and is more limited in the country data set.

^b Uses Agrecalc, carbon and efficiency calculator; data from farms with applicable enterprises 2018–2022, AR4 GWP. Mean gross emissions only, emissions to farmgate as CO₂e/kg deadweight (dwt) and CO₂we/kg deadweight (dwt). The GWP* calculation is based on national emissions trends.

As sheep and cattle are ruminants, enteric methane is the greatest proportion of the GWP100 carbon footprint. For sheep, the farm production footprint under GWP* is around 1% of the GWP100 measure due to the marked decline in the overall population. However, this will rise if the population stabilises.

The roadmap will initially focus its strategic goals to drive change – facilitating collaboration, establishing a baseline, measuring progress, reducing GHG emissions and increasing carbon sequestration alongside managing existing carbon stores.

It will identify clear ambitions for the sector and, over time, will incorporate wider environmental metrics. The roadmap will also consider climate adaptation and how to utilise other work such as the Livestock Information Service and AHDB’s Environmental Baselining Pilot.

The roadmap is a ‘living’ document that will change as the sector progresses.

We are hoping to publish a second version of the roadmap in the early summer of 2025 that sets the key environmental ambitions for the sector to 2050, agreeing milestones and their measures.

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