Ecological and economic aspects of improving technological methods of cattle raising and fattening

Issue № 7, 2024, article № 4, pages 29-36

Section: Economic mechanism of managing

Language: Russian

Original language title: ЭКОЛОГО-ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКИЕ АСПЕКТЫ СОВЕРШЕНСТВОВАНИЯ ТЕХНОЛОГИЧЕСКИХ СПОСОБОВ ВЫРАЩИВАНИЯ И ОТКОРМА КРУПНОГО РОГАТОГО СКОТА

Keywords: LIVESTOCK FARMING, MODELING, GROWING AND FATTENING, CATTLE, GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS, ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY

Abstract: The presence of a low-carbon economic development strategy adopted in Russia makes urgent the problem of reducing the carbon footprint of agricultural products, including the production of cattle meat, which accounts for significant volumes of greenhouse gas emissions. This fact, at a minimum, requires careful attention to those technological aspects on which the reduction of the carbon footprint depends while maintaining the planned production of cattle meat. The authors do not support extreme points of view, the essence of which is a radical reduction in livestock numbers and an increase in the proportion of plant foods, meat cultured from animal stem cells, and the use of insect protein for food purposes. However, from our point of view, the variety of existing technological methods for producing meat is not always accompanied by the minimum necessary greenhouse gas emissions. The purpose of this work is to propose a method for assessing the environmental and economic efficiency of certain technologies for raising and fattening cattle under various combinations of factors of a zootechnical and economic nature. For this purpose, the work uses a model of animal body weight growth during the periods of growing and fattening, the dynamics of which depends on the initial weight, the quality of the feed supply, and the economics of the implemented technological method - on the cost of the diet, conditionally fixed costs per animal, and the relationship between the selling price with the conditions achieved by the end of fattening. Most of these factors also influence the volume of greenhouse gas emissions that accompanies the technological process in question. The model estimates the emissions of two greenhouse gases: enteric methane, as well as methane and nitrous oxide released from animal excrement. Ecological and economic efficiency in this work is understood as the ratio of net income from the sale of cattle in live weight to the volume of greenhouse gases produced, and maximizing this criterion as a result of searching for an appropriate combination of the above factors allows us to speak of efficiency in an environmental and economic sense. technologies.

Authors: Siptits Stanislav Ottovich, Romanenko Irina Anatolevna, Evdokimova Natalia Egorovna