Improving Human Diets and Welfare through Using Herbivore-Based Foods: 1. Human and Animal Perspectives

Human health and diet are closely linked. The diversity of diets consumed by humans is remarkable, and most often incorporates both animal and plant-based foods. However, there has been a recent call for a reduced intake of animal-based foods due to concerns associated with human health in developed countries and perceived impacts on the environment. Yet, evidence for the superior nutritional quality of animal-sourced food such as meat, milk, and eggs, compared with plant-based foods, indicates that consumption of animal-sourced food should and will continue. This being the case, the aim here is to examine issues associated with animal-sourced foods in terms of both the quantification and mitigation of unintended consequences associated with environment, animal health, and herd management. Therefore, we examined the role of animal proteins in human societies with reference to the UN-FAO issues associated with animal-sourced foods. The emphasis is on dominant grazed pastoral-based systems, as used in New Zealand and Ireland, both with temperate moist climates and a similar reliance on global markets for generating net wealth from pastoral agricultural products. In conclusion, animal-sourced foods are shown to be an important part of the human diet. Production systems can result in unintended consequences associated with environment, animal health, and herd management, and there are technologies and systems to provide solutions to these that are available or under refinement.

Queensland’s multi-year Wet and Dry periods: implications for grazing enterprises and pasture resources

Year-to-year variability in rainfall has long been recognised as a major issue in managing livestock enterprises across Australia’s grazing lands. Extension products documenting rainfall variability have been developed over the last 30 years and have been keenly sought by producers and their advisors. This paper describes multi-year rainfall variability from 1889 to 2020 and provides the basis for classifying the 131 years of rainfall into 18 discrete Wet (7), Average (2) and Dry (9) periods as presented in the ‘Queensland’s Extended Wet and Dry Periods’ poster. The classification was consistent with: analysis of fluctuations and trends in the long-term time series of reported livestock numbers; drought declarations for government assistance; and documented periods of pasture resource degradation and recovery. Rainfall during the nine Wet and Average periods was +18% above the long-term average annual rainfall (LTAAR), in contrast to the Dry periods with −17% below LTAAR. Wet periods (including Average) were on average 7 years in duration, ranging from 5 to 9 years. Dry periods were on average 8 years in duration and ranged from 5 to 13 years. Detailed analysis of the effects of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon indicated that: (a) the Wet/Dry periods were dominated by different frequencies and amounts of rainfall in La Niña/El Niño years; (b) rainfall in ENSO neutral years was generally above and below average rainfall for the Wet or Dry periods respectively; (c) the frequency of ENSO year-types was less important than the overall rainfall surplus (or deficit) in La Niña (or El Niño) years within the Wet (or Dry) periods respectively; and (d) the timing of Wet and Dry periods was correlated with indices of quasi-decadal and inter-decadal variability in components (sea surface temperatures and atmospheric pressures) of the global climate system. Climatic risk assessment systems for grazing management at multi-year timescales are yet to be developed.