For the Climate
At every step of the journey from farm to table, our food impacts the land, air and water we all share.
The Protein PACT unites, amplifies and strengthens commitments from farmers, packers, and processors to conserve energy and water, maintain healthy soil and reduce emissions as we progress toward carbon neutrality. Producing the meat, poultry, eggs and dairy we need using less land, water and energy has never been more important.
The U.S. dairy industry has committed to achieve GHG neutrality by 2050, further building on U.S. dairy’s achievements reducing dairy farm greenhouse gas emissions that are already the lowest in the world.4
4 http://www.fao.org/3/CA2929EN/ca2929en.pdf
U.S. beef has reduced its environmental “hoofprint” by more than 16% since 19774, and the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef has developed a framework to do even more.
More and more U.S. pig farms use renewable energy – even capturing methane from manure to power their farms. Some are already carbon neutral or negative, and the National Pork Board is working with farmers to aim even higher.
Sustainable animal feed production makes significant contributions to sustainable animal agriculture - U.S. soybean and corn farmers are building on their sustainability achievements by committing to further reduce erosion and greenhouse gas emissions, among other goals.
Animal feed helps use up leftovers that would otherwise go to waste – more than 40% of animal feed ingredients are left over from making human food.