The new report of the Court of Auditors includes a recommendation on the cattle population, which will have to decrease in the coming years.
By HR with AFP
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Mno cows? In any case, this is the recommendation of the Court of Auditors in its report published this Monday, May 22. For the institution, the French government should “define and make public a reduction strategy” of its cattle population. This is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years.
The report was published the day Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne unveiled a government action plan assessing greenhouse gas reductions by major sector of the economy, and quantifying the effort for agriculture, with a priority reduction of the impact of animal husbandry and nitrogen fertilizers. France, Europe’s leading beef producer and second dairy herd behind Germany, has around 17 million head of cattle. But cattle farming accounts for 11.8% of the country’s emissions.
An unfavorable balance for the climate
“The balance sheet of cattle breeding for the climate is unfavorable”, writes the Court of Auditors in a report on public support for cattle breeders. The Court specifies that the sequestration of carbon by the meadows where the animals graze is “far from offsetting the emissions” of livestock farming. The livestock balance sheet is mainly weighed down by methane emissions: the production of this gas with a very warming power – resulting from the digestion of ruminants and their excreta – represents 45% of French agricultural emissions.
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“Compliance with France’s commitments to reduce methane emissions […] necessarily calls for a significant reduction in the herd”, decides the institution which asks the Ministry of Agriculture to “define and make public” a strategy in this area. The Court notes that the ministry communicated to it “its hypotheses on the evolution of the cattle herd” which could decline to around 15 million head in 2035 and 13.5 million in 2050.
Continue the decline in the herd
The decline in the herd has begun (-10% in six years). But “this reduction remains suffered and is not the subject of real management by the State, to the detriment of the operators”, observes the Court. For the institution, the decline in livestock would not undermine France’s “sovereignty” in terms of red meat provided that consumers follow the recommendations of health authorities not to eat more than 500 grams per week (threshold currently exceeded by 28% of adults).
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At the same time, it recommends that the ministry “better support the breeders most in difficulty” so that they can “reorient themselves towards other production systems or change their professional orientation”. More broadly, it considers that the current aid schemes for cattle breeders are “very expensive” (4.3 billion euros in 2019).