Shift to Grass-Fed Beef Production Won’t Cut Carbon Emissions

Grass-fed beef isn’t more climate-friendly than traditional grain-fed meat largely because of the amount of land needed for grazing, a new study finds.

Research, drawn from reviews of 100 beef production operations across 16 countries, “reveals a stark reality: claims of low-carbon beef glaringly omit the most significant factor, the carbon opportunity cost of land use,” lead author Daniel Blaustein-Rejto, the Breakthrough Institute’s director of food and agriculture, said. The institute identifies technological solutions to climate and other environmental challenges.

The study’s findings, released Wednesday, have implications for policy strategies to mitigate the emissions from beef. Global estimates of beef-related ...