Mapping genetic performance improvement in Scottish livestock

Scotland’s Vision for Agriculture sets an ambition for Scotland to lead in sustainable farming – improving productivity while reducing emissions. However, there is limited evidence on how genetic and performance changes over the past decade have affected methane emissions from Scottish livestock.

This research examines these changes and their impact on productivity and methane emissions. It identifies options for action, assesses their potential impacts and value for money, and highlights priorities for implementation and future research.

Key findings

• We found three groups of interventions that could improve productivity and reduce emissions in the Scotland’s beef sector:
  • Breeding and genetics: Options include using genetic information to identify animals with lower methane emissions, adding methane traits to breeding indexes, improving replacement strategies, and using bulls rather than steers.
  • Feeding, nutrition, and grazing management: Options include better use of feed, high-energy diets, legumes, feed additives, and improved grazing practices.
  • Lifetime productivity: Options to help cattle produce more beef while reducing emissions include shorter gaps between calving, higher calving rates, matching calving with feed availability, and finishing animals earlier to reduce unproductive days.
• Together, the following five interventions could deliver around £250 million in annual benefits to the Scottish economy: changes to cattle breed and type, higher cow replacement rate, concentrate feeding, improved grazing management, reduced slaughter age
• Around £150 million of this could come from higher productivity and £100 million from lower emissions. This suggests the above package could offer good value for money, but further work is needed to assess costs, uptake and potential benefits.
• Further research is needed to understand how interventions could be adopted, including farmer support, infrastructure, timescales and the role of government.
• Better evidence and monitoring would help assess what works, how impacts vary across farms and regions, and how policies can be refined over time.

If you require the report in an alternative format, such as a Word document, please contact info@climatexchange.org.uk or 0131 651 4783.

Photo by Daniel Quiceno M on Unsplash