Climate Change Policy, Markets and Greenhouse Gas Offset Trading

Posted in: Environment by admin on January 1, 2004 | No Comments

Climate change refers to a change in long-term climate patterns. Governments are designing policies and programs that enable markets for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trading. The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement to set GHG reduction targets and emission caps, allow targets to be met through market-based strategies such as emissions trading, and have binding consequences for those signatory industrialized nations that do not meet their Kyoto target. Today, Canada and Alberta are in the mid-stages of designing both an offset and emissions trading framework. Two cooperative systems include a Large Final Emitter (LFE) Emissions Trading System (a cap and trade system where allowance or permits can be traded) and an offset system (a form of credit-based emissions trading). GHG offset credits can be generated when a producer makes a practice change that results in either a removal or reduction of GHG emissions. Valid GHG offset credits can only be created through projects that meet certain conditions and are approved by a regulatory authority. The goal of the federal and provincial offsets system is to have rules in place by 2005/2006 that would allow for a more transparent, lower cost approach to generating offsets from agriculture, forestry, and other sectors. The availability of certified offsets will allow regulated companies to meet their GHG reduction target at the least possible cost. It will essentially delay internal technological changes. Before producers decide to change management practices to sell GHG offsets, they should consider market uncertainties such as baseline, price of carbon and ownership. Any offset project must be able to answer whether or not the GHG reductions are measurable, clearly owned, permanent, surplus, real, verifiable, or additional. In today’s carbon market, GHG offsets are selling from $1 to $3 US per tonne of GHG emissions. Experts expect this price to increase between 2008 and 2010. Canada has put a ceiling of $15 per tonne. In Alberta, the landowner owns the carbon in the soil. In the case of reduction credits, ownership is in the hands of the initiator of the reduction/removal practice unless otherwise stipulated by contract. It is important for producers who initiate actions to reduce or remove emissions to get signed contracts with other possible claimants as to what portion of the reductions/removals they own and have the right to sell. Participating in projects today can be a risky business, but there are a number of hedging strategies buyers and sellers can use to mitigate some of the risks. The trick is to identify the risks, understand them, and address them through contract-based strategies. Until the rules for offsets are firmly established, the amount of money to be made is limited due to the high transaction and administrative costs needed to develop contracts.

Performance characteristics of three aeration systems in the swine manure composting

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Nutrient Uptake by Warm-Season Perennial Grasses in a Swine Effluent Spray Field

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Large-Scale Assessment of Symbiotic Dinitrogen Fixation by Crops: Soybean and Alfalfa in the Mississippi River Basin

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Practical Application of Enzyme Supplementation in Swine

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Feed ingredients have a range in content of energy-providing macro nutrients. Especially digestibility of the crude fiber fraction has a large range in nutrient digestibility among feed ingredients. The range in fiber digestibility is directly related and inversely related to a range in digestibility of energy, the most expensive nutrient contained in swine diets. Supplemental enzymes may be beneficial to improve energy digestibility. Specific substrates and thus enzymes are beneficial for wheat and barley, but multi-enzyme cocktail were beneficial for diets based on corn and soybean meal as well. By taking the expected uplift in energy digestibility and thus energy content into consideration during least-cost diet formulation can the diet cost be reduced and should supplemental enzymes allow a cost benefit, depending on the price of the enzyme.

Handling the Grow/Finish Process

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Up until just before market, the grow-finish pigs require little management. Just before market is when the weighing, sorting, and loading takes place. Methods of sorting include weighing and eyeballing, which is weighing a pig at target weight and selecting other markets based on a comparison. There is weighing and sorting later, where they weigh and mark pigs that are ready for market and will be ready by next shipping day. Combined weighing and sort involves weighing a group of pigs and separating them into groups of markets and non-markets. This is great for hitting the core of the grid. Large group auto sort is great for large groups. Large finisher groups are widely used due to low capital costs. The downfall of large groups is the increase in labour demand, especially in sorting! Because of this, the large group auto sorting is becoming popular to allow for ongoing sorting as the pigs reach market weight. Two methods are available to train pigs to use the auto sort feeder. The first method involves access to the “food court” only through the sorter (they must be gently crowded toward the sorter in order to adapt to it without being freaked out). The second method is to have numerous access points to the food court and then gradually close them off until they can only use the sorter. This lets the pigs train themselves without the stress of people. About one half of the percentage of pigs marketed are “fatigued”. These pigs were healthy on the farm but the stress has caused them to go down from fatigue. Research conducted has studied different ways of stressful pig handling and what it does to the pigs. This allowed them to identify warning signs of a fatiguing pig. Signs leading to the development of this is being caught in a passageway, not finding the exit from the turning pen, freezing in a corner, and increasing levels of confusion. Producers should review their handling procedures and decide if stress can be lowered at any point during load out. This can be done by consulting with workers, consultants, and identifying particularly stressful points to see if the stress at that point can be reduced.

Manipulating Pork Quality through Production and Pre-Slaughter Handling

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Pre-slaughter handling has a significant effect on meat quality, depending on the level of stress and the changes in metabolic activity in the muscle. Pork quality can be categorized into pH, colour, intra-muscular fat, tenderness, flavour, water-holding capacity, and oxidative characteristics. Genetic influence of pork quality is based on the sex effect (gilt fat vs. barrow fat), stress gene (first described as porcine stress syndrome), and the Napole effect (originally in the Hampshire breed, causing low muscle pH and is associated with PSE pork). Selection considerations should be based on quality attributes as well as production and meat yield percentage to optimize efficient production of lean, high quality pork. Feeding at levels close to ad lib increases fat deposition and improves tenderness compared to restricted feeding. Metabolic modifiers can be used to improve rate of gain, feed efficiency, dressing percentage, carcass meat yield, meat quality, meat palatability, and extend shelf life. Resting time in the barn prior to slaughter can range from at least 2 to 4 hours to overnight and is influenced by the genetics of the pig, feed withdrawal time and distance of transportation. During resting in the barn, each pig requires about 0.55 to 0.67 square meters for every 100 kg to move and rest. Mixing pigs with stranger pigs is not recommended, especially in large groups in crowded pens. Drinking water should be reachable and water sprays/misters are recommended (especially during the hot season to reduce body temperature and respiratory rate). Stressing the pigs between temporary housing and stunning is critical; meat quality can be damaged in this timeframe.

Decision support system with semantic model to assess the risk of tail biting in pigs 1. 'Validation'.

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Tail biting is a behavioural problem with both welfare and economic consequences. Various conditions that may contribute to tail biting have been identified in a number of research reports. This paper examined those reports and extracted these causative factors. A weighting factor was developed for each of these contributing conditions, and a model developed to estimate the risk of tail biting in any housing/management system. The ability of the model to predict the relative level of tail biting in two environments was assessed using treatment comparisons reported in 12 scientific papers. In total, 77 pairs of treatments were assessed, and in 63 of these comparisons the model predicted the relative level of tail biting correctly. From this the authors conclude that the model may be a useful tool in assessing the risk for tail biting in pigs. Additional testing, with provision for further modification of the model, is required.

Locomotor behaviour in dairy calves, the use of demand functions to assess the effect of deprivation.

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Demand functions are used in an attempt to measure animal motivation. In the current study, demand functions were used to assess the effect of deprivation of locomotion on the motivation to perform locomotor behaviour in dairy calves. However, when animals are deprived, there is also a pause in testing, which may be confounded with the animals’ ability to respond to the operant task. The objective of this study was to determine if the motivation to perform locomotor behaviour was consistent when the pause in operant testing varied. More specifically, the authors wanted to determine if there was a decline in the calves’ ability to respond operantly for access to an exercise arena, where it could increase its locomotor behaviour. A long pause (4 days) and a short pause (1 day) in operant testing were compared. There were three fixed ratios (FR 8, 16, or 24), which indicate the number of times the calves have to press a lever to gain access to the exercise arena. The results indicated that a pause of 1 or 4 days in operant testing did not affect the demand function based on number of rewards per session or the demand function based on overall time calves spent galloping/bucking during the rewards. Also, the length of pause in operant testing did not affect the median latency to press the panel after entering the start box or the median interval between successive number of times pressing the panel. In conclusion, responding during operant sessions was not adversely affected by increasing the number of days from 1 to 4 between operant testing.

A comparison of the welfare and meat quality of veal calves slaughtered on the farm with those subjected to transportation and lairage.

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The behaviour, physiology and meat quality of 24-week-old veal calves that were either slaughtered at the veal unit (control) or transported 3 h while provided with 0.7 or 0.95 m2 per calf and 1.5h of lairage were compared. The heart rate of the transported calves was higher during travel and lairage than the levels seen in the control calves. The transported calves also had higher plasma cortisol concentrations immediately after the travel had ceased, but had returned to levels seen in the control following lairage. The plasma creatine kinase activity immediately following travel and after lairage was higher in transported calves. The calves were not observed lying during travel. Space allowance during travel did not affect the calves’ heart rate, plasma cortisol concentration nor the plasma creatine kinase activity. The difference in space allowance during transport did not affect the frequency of potentially traumatic events experienced by the calves. The calves that underwent transport did not have a higher incidence of carcass bruising and the muscle pH 24 hours post-slaughter was similar between the control and experimental groups. The handling associated with transport and transit itself were quite stressful for the calves, however transport did not impact the quality of the carcass.