(Food, 2020) reported that production of 1 kg of beef costs 45x more methane emission than production 1 kg of chicken?? Why is this ?
Is this associated with digestive system of two animals??
Which is more ecologically sound??
- Yes, it is associated with the digestive system of both animals.
- If the report indicate 1kg beef = 45x 1kg chicken in terms of emission, the question about ecological viability is already answered.
Within agriculture, beef cattle are responsible for the largest amount of greenhouse gas emissions. These are predominately due to methane produced from enteric fermentation (the natural digestive process of ruminants). ... Methane is produced by the microbes as a by-product and released from the animal through belching. https://beef.unl.edu/le-faqs
Check https://letstalkscience.ca/educational-resources/stem-in-context/cows-methane-and-climate-change
Meat products have larger carbon footprints per calorie than grain or vegetable products because of the inefficient transformation of plant energy to animal energy, and due to the methane released from manure management and enteric fermentation in ruminants http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/carbon-footprint-factsheet
This phenomena might be related to significant difference between both the tow speices in the mature of feedstuffs used by each species, mainly roughages in ruminants , besides concentrates . Chicken mainly depending on concentrates . Morever , ruminants have more devolped fermentation process than chicken . As a stable metabolic rule, roughed are mainly responsible on methane gas emissions as a side fermentation product to carbohydrate(roughages digestion) in ruminants, besides CO2, H2 and some other gases. Chickens are mainly depended on concentrates feeding , which might result in rare minimum amounts of gas emissions.
As a conclusion, nature of feedstuffs used and significant difference between both digestive systems , besides the metabolic end products of feedstuffs digestion, favored chickens 🐔than ruminants in methane emissions polutiotions of the atmosphere.
Cows emit methane, a strong greenhouse gas when they eat grasses and plants. Cow burps are caused by a process known as "enteric fermentation." Manure also emits methane, and. Enteric fermentation (in ruminant livestock) is responsible for about 27% of anthropogenic methane emissions worldwide.
https://www.wri.org/insights/6-pressing-questions-about-beef-and-climate-change-answered
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_production
The emission are related with metabolism of the two species depending on the type of feed vosumed. Hence the cattle depend mainly on roughage and concentrate while checken depends only on concenttste
it is associated with the digestive system and feeds of both animals.
This is dependent on body size. The larger the body size the larger the surface area for emitting the methane gas. Therefore, the beef animals are large-bodied, hence have a larger surface through which they release more methane as compared to small-bodied poultry with a small surface area.
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