Cattle farming and the environment: what technical or organisational solutions is INRA considering?

This text sets out the views of the Cattle Commission on the current state of play regarding the environmental impacts of cattle farming systems. It is based on a simplified exploratory assessment of the use of scarce resources, emissions, biodiversity management and landscape conservation by cattle farming systems. This sector is highly diverse. It is characterised by extreme levels of intensification, ranging from high-yielding third-party dairy systems to extensive suckler grazing systems. However, the intra-system variability in environmental impacts is often much greater than the inter-system variability. Our analysis highlights the work carried out by numerous research teams to quantify various pollutant fluxes, renewable energy requirements and water needs, and reiterates the potential for modulating GHG emissions. It highlights the importance of grassland management and maximising grazing as key factors in improving the environmental balance across numerous criteria. It also emphasises that, thanks to grazing by herbivores, grassland can remain a major reservoir of plant and animal biodiversity.