Project will address climate change, animal ag issues

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension has been awarded four-point-one million dollars from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture for a five-year project addressing climate change and animal agriculture issues.

While there is still plenty of disagreement on the issue of climate change—and its causes—UNL Extension Engineer Crystal Powers says livestock and poultry producers will likely have to adapt to policy changes down the road.

“We’d like to hope that that’s going to be minimal, but we want to be prepared to address whatever might be coming down the pipeline,” Powers says. “Agriculture still is a fairly minor piece in the climate change picture, but definitely there’s a possibility that we’ll need to find ways to meet challenges that are coming—both regulatory as well as just public demand.”

Powers says the goal of the project is to help move animal production toward practices that are environmentally sound, climatically compatible and economically viable.

“What we really hope happens coming out of this project is that we’ve got a coordinated effort at the state, regional and national level to really help producers be able to adjust to this new demand, but still have the ability to produce meat, milk and eggs like we know we’re able to do in the United States,” she says.

Five other land grant universities are partnering with UNL in the project.  They are Washington State University, Texas A&M, University of Georgia, Cornell University and the University of Minnesota.

http://brownfieldagnews.com/2011/07/25/project-will-address-climate-change-animal-ag-issues/