A Case Study Assessment of the Carbon Footprint of Sheep Production Systems in California

Abstract

•California is the nation's leading producer of market sheep <br/> •Most sheep in CA spend at least part of their life on rangeland, as part of a wide variety of diverse systems <br/> •The environmental impact of these systems is unknown <br/> •Life cycle assessment (LCA) and carbon footprint calculations can be used to measure the efficiency and environmental impacts of livestock production <br/> •California-specific LCAs have been conducted (e.g. Stackhouse-Lawson et al. (2012) for beef production and DeLonge(2016) for wool) <br/> •The environmental impact of sheep meat production in other countries has been studied, but not for the US <br/> •Reducing carbon footprint is highly correlated with increasing production efficiency and profitability <br/> •A case study based method will allow for the calculation and comparison of the carbon footprints of different production system types <br/> •Baseline resource use and carbon footprint data from different sectors of the California sheep industry would allow producers to assess current environmental impacts <br/> •This data would help producers improve production efficiency and reduce environmental impact while maintaining the health of native rangelands