Breeding Decisions and the flock carbon footprint

blog by Professor Karl Behrendt

This work shows that better breeding decisions can make a real difference to both profitability and environmental performance on UK sheep farms. By combining genetic modelling with whole‑farm system bioeconomic modelling and carbon foot printing, we’ve demonstrated that selecting rams for improved maternal traits, growth and efficiency using current maternal indexes can reduce emissions per kilo of lamb produced. At the same time, adopting practice changes such as lifting lamb sale weights where the market rewards it, and matching lambing date and ewe lambing strategy to feed supply can also improve output and cut emissions per kilo of lamb produced. These gains are not instant, don’t come from a single trait and will vary with different maternal selection indexes, but once the new genetics flow through the flock and improves how the whole system functions, the benefits build over time, with better sheep production system efficiency, lower emissions intensity and improved farm returns. In combination they are also expected to improve flock resilience in response to climate and output price risk, although longer run trade-offs between genetic potential and feed supply need to be anticipated and managed. The final report will detail these interactions for different types of farms (lowlands & uplands) and sheep production systems across the English sheep sector.