Fewer cows? In any case, this is the recommendation of the Court of Auditors in its report published this Monday, May 22. For the institution, the French government should "define and make public a reduction strategy" of its cattle population. This is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years.
The report is published on the day that Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne unveiled a government action plan assessing greenhouse gas reductions by major sector of the economy, and quantifying the effort for agriculture, with priority given to reduction of the impact of animal husbandry and nitrogen fertilizers. France, Europe's leading beef producer and second dairy herd behind Germany, has around 17 million head of cattle. However, cattle farming accounts for 11.8% of the country's emissions.
"The balance sheet of cattle breeding for the climate is unfavorable," writes the Court of Auditors in a report on public support for cattle breeders. The Court specifies that the carbon sequestration by the grasslands where the animals graze is "far from offsetting the emissions" of livestock farming. The livestock balance sheet is mainly weighed down by methane emissions: the production of this gas with a very warming power - resulting from the digestion of ruminants and their excreta - represents 45% of French agricultural emissions.
"Compliance with France's commitments in terms of reducing methane emissions [...] necessarily calls for a significant reduction in livestock," says the institution, which asks the Ministry of Agriculture to "define and make public" a strategy in matter. The Court notes that the ministry communicated to it "its assumptions on the evolution of the cattle herd" which could decline to around 15 million head in 2035 and 13.5 million in 2050.
The decline in the herd has begun (-10% in six years). But "this reduction remains suffered and is not the subject of real management by the State, to the detriment of the operators", observes the Court. For the institution, the decline in livestock would not undermine France's "sovereignty" in terms of red meat provided that consumers follow the recommendations of health authorities not to eat more than 500 grams per week (threshold currently exceeded by 28% of adults).
At the same time, she recommends that the ministry "better support the breeders most in difficulty" so that they can "reorient themselves towards other production systems or change their professional orientation". More broadly, it considers that the current aid schemes for cattle breeders are "very expensive" (4.3 billion euros in 2019).
