Optimising pasture-based ruminant production systems

英国反刍动物养殖场每年生产294万头牛和1460万只羊，其相关部门每年生产的肉制品价值98亿英镑，它们的存在被广泛认为是维持各种生态系统服务和农村社区不可或缺的。特别是，以牧场为基础的反刍动物生产系统利用了不适合耕种作物生产的土地，因此有可能为全球粮食安全做出贡献，而不会引发对自然资源的粮食-饲料竞争。与此同时，反刍动物是温室气体排放的重要来源，全球10%的人为碳足迹可归因于它们的生产，也是水道的主要污染者。考虑到这种经济与环境的权衡关系，我们迫切需要确定改善该行业全系统绩效的战略。最近一项基于生产者调查的研究表明，英国畜牧业农场的经济表现具有一定程度的可变性，远远超出了它们所处的地理和生物物理条件所能解释的范围，更重要的是，它们的经济表现与环境表现密切相关。这一发现，再加上英国牛肉和羊肉价值链上90%以上的全球变暖潜能值可归因于农场活动的估计数字，表明反刍动物生产系统的经济优化不仅有利于英国社会的经济发展，而且有利于环境。利用洛桑研究所北威克农场平台（NWFP: http://www.rothamsted.ac.uk/farmplatform）的丰富数据集和最先进的设施，该项目为学生提供了一个独特的机会，通过经济优化的方式来研究提高牧场反刍动物生产系统的环境绩效的选择。虽然将更加强调羊生产系统（已被证明在英国比牛肉系统的环境效率低），但牛肉和羊肉部门之间的最佳资源分配策略也将作为研究的一部分进行探索。该项目的产出将通过AHDB维护的大型商业农场网络直接传播给该行业，AHDB是英国农业生产者的征税委员会，赞助了这项研究。

With the annual throughputs of 2.94 million cattle and 14.6 million sheep, UK ruminant farms and the associated sectors produce meat products worth £9.8 billion per year and their existence is widely considered to be indispensable for the maintenance of various ecosystem services and rural communities. In particular, pasture-based ruminant production systems utilise land unsuitable for arable crop production and therefore have the potential to contribute to global food security without initiating the food-feed competition for natural resources.At the same time, ruminants are a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions, with 10 percent of human-induced carbon footprint attributable to their production around the world, and also a leading polluter of waterways. Given this economic-environmental trade-off, there is a clear and urgent need to identify strategies for improving the system-wide performance of the industry.Recent research based on producer surveys has shown that the economic performance of UK livestock farms have a level of variability far beyond what can be explained by the geographical and biophysical conditions they operate in, and even more crucially, their economic performance is strongly correlated with environmental performance. This finding, combined with the estimated figure that more than 90% of global warming potential along the UK value chain for beef and lamb are attributable to on-farm activities, suggests that economic optimisation of ruminant production systems will not only benefit UK society economically but also environmentally.Using the rich dataset and state-of-the-art facilities available at Rothamsted Research's North Wyke Farm Platform (NWFP: http://www.rothamsted.ac.uk/farmplatform), this project provides the student with a unique opportunity to investigate options to enhance environmental performance of pasture-based ruminant production systems by the means of economic optimisation. While a stronger emphasis will be placed on sheep production systems (which have been shown to be environmentally less efficient than beef systems in the UK), strategies for optimal resource allocation between the beef and lamb sectors will also be explored as part of the research. Outputs from the project will be directly disseminated to the industry through the large network of commercial farms maintained by AHDB, the levy board for English agricultural producers who sponsors this research.