Adapting Livestock Production Systems to Climate Change

Livestock production is the world’s dominant land use, with ‘open’(non-forested) grazing lands covering about 45% of the earth’s land surface (Asner et al., 2004). Although grazing land includes productive pastures in mesic environments, often livestock production is the land use of last resort when land is not suitable for more productive uses such as cropping. As such livestock production occurs in some of the harshest and most variable climates in the world, and coping with these challenges has been an important part of developing sustainable production systems (eg McKeon et al., 2004). The risks of climate change are now adding to these challenges and there is growing evidence that humans are contributing significantly to these changes through increased emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG)(IPCC, 2007).

Even if global actions are taken to reduce GHG emissions, past emissions have already committed the planet to several more decades of warming. The harsh environments in many rangelands are already marginal for livestock production and, with few alternative livelihood options, these areas will be particularly vulnerable to climate change (Stafford Smith et al., 2007). Climate change could affect the amount and quality of produce, reliability of production and the natural resource base on which agriculture depends. In some areas, new opportunities are likely to emerge, but realising these potential benefits will require proactive changes in management practices. These challenges require high levels of adaptive responses (Howden et al., 2007a). In order to continue to thrive in the future, livestock industries need to anticipate these …