National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) joined a coalition of agricultural groups in opposing a tentative plan to tax livestock in order to mitigate the greenhouse gases they emit. In comments submitted in response to an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR), NMPF pointed out the negative consequences that could occur if EPA proceeds to rulemaking with this ANPR.
NMPF expressed concern that the negative consequences for animal agriculture are potentially large, and could result in a substantial fee being paid by producers if the EPA proceeds with its plan. In fact, NMPF pointed out that the imposition of GHG standards will have the perverse effect of stifling further innovation by dairy producers, hindering work with the research and extension community, and reducing the risk taking involved in the industry’s continual efforts to reduce costs and increase profitability.
NMPF offered statistical examples of how well animal agriculture and the farming sector has reduced or held GHG emissions constant relative to the amount of food produced to satisfy the needs of consumers in the U.S. and worldwide. These include:
• Animal agriculture’s GHG emissions from 1990 to 2005 have remained nearly constant, increasing by only about 3.5% since 1990, while over the same period total U.S. meat production has increased 50%, milk production has increased almost 20%, and egg production has increased about 32%.
• While animal agriculture has been reported by the United Nations as responsible for 18% of GHG emissions worldwide, animal feeding operation systems more similar to U.S.-style operations are reported by the U.N. as accounting for only 5% of GHG emissions worldwide.
• Animal agriculture in the U.S. does even better than its counterpart systems worldwide, as it was directly responsible for about 2.5% of total US emissions in 2007 as reported by the EPA.
• Between 1948 to the present, while the manure generated by U.S. meat-producing animals has been reduced in total by 25%, the production of meat from the animal herd has been increased 700%.
• The U.S. dairy system is today supplying consumers’ needs for dairy products with about one-third of the GHG emissions generated by the system in 1944 per pound of milk produced.