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Low carbon production has higher marginal costs and tend to be small farmers which is the group that suffer first when prices drops. The high carbon beef is ba
by belorn 8y ago
Low carbon production has higher marginal costs and tend to be small farmers which is the group that suffer first when prices drops.
The high carbon beef is basically all import here in Sweden, and there is no deforestation issue from farming. From a environmental perspective we actually need more open fields to maintain bio diversity.
When climate aware people stop buying beef the ratio of imported beef increase. In last few years we have actually seen an decrease in imported beef, which has been attributed to more awareness of low carbon beef vs high carbon beef. People buy more local and significant less imported. Locally produced beef cost between 2-4 times as much as imported, which naturally impact how much people buy.
- bryanlarsen 8y agoSwedish beef has to be sheltered inside and fed over winter, doesn't it? That's a fairly carbon intense activity.
- basetop 8y agoAs opposed to the swedish vegetables that flourish in the swedish winter?
- belorn 8y agoSince we are talking about climate change, it happens that the last couple of winters has been the mildest in ages and reduced the number of months that farmers need to keep cattle inside to between one and two months. But it is more complex than that. We don't have deforestation issue from farming. Fields, even those that is just for hay are important for bio diversity and it is generally soils where other crops won't grow. We don't burn down old jungle forest to grow corn in order to feed cows that then get transported through half the globe. It is fields that if they get overgrown would remove the biotope that many species here depend on. Highland cattle is the extreme end where they can basically live outside the whole year, and they do the job that people and motorized machines otherwise would need to do in order to maintain national reservations. I would be much interested in reading a study that compared the environmental effect of using forest machines vs letting cows keeping overgrowth down.