Abstracts - Environnement

The breeding of local breeds with small or very small numbers of animals is currently attracting renewed interest because it is in line with agro-ecological issues and meets consumer aspirations. This article focuses on the Maraîchine cattle breed, which is currently used for meat production. Within the framework of a research-action project, researchers built a protocol with farmers to evaluate the nutritional and sensory quality of their beef. After presenting the context of the Maraîchine cow farm, the article presents the experimental design and the results obtained. Ten grass-finished beef cattle and 8 concentrate-finished beef cattle from 7 farms were recruited. The analyses were performed on flank steak and focused on the biochemical and metabolic characteristics of the muscle, sensory qualities and rheological properties, intramuscular lipid content and fatty acid composition, and finally, on the antioxidant potential of the meat. Meat is on average richer in polyunsaturated fatty acids and less rich in saturated fatty acids than other meat breeds. The grass finishing diet leads to leaner meats with a better health value. Antioxidant defenses are very high and grass-fed finishing mainly strengthens exogenous antioxidant defenses. Regarding sensory and rheological qualities, grass finishing does not affect the color of the meat but results in a less tender meat despite an increase in juiciness.

The "Dublin Declaration" was initiated by the members of the Committee who organized the "International Summit on the Role of Meat in Society - What Science Says" which took place on 19 and 20 October 2022 in Dublin at Teagasc (the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority which provides integrated research, advisory and training services to the agriculture and food industry and rural communities). Animal breeding and meat production contribute to the health and well-being of animals and people, maintain ecological balances and guarantee socio-economic livelihoods, states this declaration, signed by around 220 scientists from all over the world. as of October 27, 2022.

The consumption of red meat (beef, mutton, pork) is the subject of recurrent criticism. However, while it increases the risk of cancer in big eaters, the nutritional benefits of its incorporation into the weekly diet are numerous: intake of high-quality proteins, highly digestible iron and vitamin B12. The consumption of water taken from aquatic resources (600 liters per kilo of steak) is far from the 15,000 liters often claimed which is a value that includes rainwater. It is inaccurate to assert that cattle farming leads to an "unacceptable" waste of plant proteins: in France, it sometimes produces more proteins consumable by humans than it consumes. By enhancing the value of grasslands, which they are able to transform into meat and milk, cattle and sheep contribute to biodiversity, soil carbon sequestration, groundwater recharge with good quality water, land use planning. However, there is one criticism that must be made of livestock farming: it is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Geneticists, animal feed specialists and farmers must work together to reduce this impact. Finally, animal welfare must be guaranteed. Otherwise, consumers could turn to foods with lower impact on the climate: pulses, plant-based mince and even cultured meat.

Agricultural land used to produce our food is a limited resource and must be preserved both in quantity and in quality. French ADEME (Barbier et al., 2020a; 2020b) and Australian (Ridoutt et al., 2020; Ridoutt and Garcia 2020) studies have developed methods for assessing land footprint of vegetal and animal agricultural production. We inferred the land footprint of typical French and Australian diets. These studies provide contrasting images regarding the footprint of different types of meat. In this article, we seek to understand and analyze reasons for differences. The ADEME study does not differentiate the different types of agricultural land; it brings out beef and sheep meats, produced mostly from grassland systems, with the largest footprint. Conversely, Australian studies accounts for agricultural land according to their potential yield; they do account for permanent grasslands, and therefore highlight monogastric meats (pork, poultry) as the most impacting ones. Thus, Ridoutt method leads to a relatively limited footprint of extensive livestock farming, mostly linked to grass consumption, and more broadly of ruminant meats, compared to meats from monogastric breeding that essentially feed on cereals and therefore use arable land. In terms of diets, those methodological differences lead to large differences in the meat share (all types of meat combined) of diet land footprint: it is three times less for Australian diets with a comparable meat consumption with respect to the French diet. Considering the many ecosystem services provided by grazeland, we therefore recommend the use of the Ridoutt methodology for the calculation of agricultural land footprint.

The aim of this study is to give a more complete picture of the environmental impact of different eating habits in various European countries (Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Portugal, Slovenia). Using life cycle analysis, the results show that, for all five countries, the total environmental impact is the result of the amount of consumption of a specific product combined with the intensity of that impact. In particular, livestock products (meat, eggs, dairy products) have consequences for all impact categories. Conversely, the transport and marketing phases contribute very little to the total damage. In addition to agricultural practices and consumption level of food products, the impact is significantly influenced by the type of food consumed, highlighting the importance of our food choices.

While livestock farming contributes heavily to climate change, the latter also has direct and indirect negative impacts on livestock systems. Agroecology represents a pathway to help the European livestock sector address the challenges raised by climate change, by reducing the ecological footprint of livestock activities, increasing the self-sufficiency of farms and reducing their sensitivity to hazards. In such perspectives, it would be appropriate to develop and mobilize animal diversity within farms and territories, to take advantage of the services rendered by livestock and to improve the distribution of livestock according to the local availability of feed resources. These three points together find their full meaning as part of the re-connection of livestock activities with their physical environment and crop production. In order to accompany the agro-ecological transition, farmers’ skills should evolve, as well as the approaches of agricultural education and counseling; agricultural and territorial politics should also be adapted. Such dynamics are already in motion but will have to be pursued. In addition, economic, socio-political and institutional aspects, which have not been analyzed here, should be taken into account.