Analysis of Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Using Enogen Corn in Beef Cattle Rations

Abstract

Simple Summary This study presents a comparative lifecycle assessment of the environmental performance of Enogen® corn as an ingredient in beef rations. We show that the reductions in environmental impact per unit of live weight gain are approximately 5% across four primary impact categories: climate change, embedded energy, land use, and water use. These conclusions are robust under a series of evaluations considering different phases of the supply chain. Abstract Agricultural production systems have been identified as significant sources of anthropogenic impacts across several environmental key performance indicators (KPIs). Livestock husbandry is growing in global importance as the demand for high-quality protein continues to increase. It is therefore imperative to have sustainable intensification technologies, and we describe one such technology. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the performance of Enogen® corn grain compared to conventional feed corn when used as an ingredient in backgrounding and feed yard beef rations using life cycle assessment. The project was conducted in compliance with ISO standards, including a third-party panel review. A series of scenarios were analyzed to evaluate the impacts of boundaries and functional units on the outcomes. The use of Enogen corn as a feed component in beef production showed a quantifiable benefit in terms of the sustainability metrics of primary interest in this study. The gate-to-gate improvements at the feed yard and backgrounding based on full field trial datasets from field trials conducted at Kansas State University and at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln showed 3.4 and 5.8 percent reductions in Global Warming Potential, respectively. It is particularly noteworthy that the improvement in feed conversion ratio at the feed yard results in approximately 6 percent improvement in the four key environmental performance metrics of beef production, which demonstrates potential for the sector to meet its sustainability targets.