When the workday is over for Wen Murphy, more often than not, he continues to think about his job. A fourth-generation farmer, he constantly keeps top of mind the staff, the animals, the productivity, the supplies, the cash flow and myriad other details that must be attended to. In short, the sustainability of being a hog farmer. But above all, he is preoccupied with what he will leave for his family members and others who will someday walk the path of those who went before him.
According to Frank Mitloehner, that’s not uncommon for people who work the land. An animal agriculture expert and air quality specialist with University of California, Davis spends his days teaching, researching and partnering with agriculturalists to help them improve their environmental footprints. It’s not only concern for the environment that spurs them on – although that certainly is critical right now – it’s also about ensuring the viability of their operations.
“Oftentimes, I meet with farmers who are fourth-, fifth-, sixth-generation farmers, and all they can think of is how to maintain the best quality of land, of animals … of the natural resources to pass them on to their kids’ generation,” he says. “And to me, that’s really what matters: that we have a food supply system that doesn’t just take it out of the ground and deplete natural resources, but that is really regenerative.”
Based in North Carolina, Murphy is a principal in Murphy Family Ventures, a large and diversified agricultural enterprise and one of the biggest swine producers in the United States. These days, in addition to a wide array of other challenges facing farmers, there’s a desire, some pressure and even legislation aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions. People like Murphy and Stewart Leeth, chief sustainability officer for Smithfield – the world's largest pork producer and America’s No. 1 pork supplier – are finding ways to rise to the occasion.
Fortunately, they’re not on their own. In addition to Mitloehner, scientists worldwide are conducting research in labs, on farms and at universities to reduce agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions. Once findings are validated, there are other teams ready to help with adoption and implementation of them at the farm level.
Where global warming and animal agriculture are concerned, the issue most often is methane, the second-most plentiful greenhouse gas. Methane is a problem because of its short-term warming potential – it traps solar radiation in the atmosphere at a rate roughly 25 times that of carbon dioxide over 100 years, but only for a decade or so after it’s emitted. Ten years in, it’s broken down; its high warming potential is destroyed.
That makes it distinctly different from carbon dioxide, the No. 1 greenhouse gas. Methane is “special,” Mitloehner says, because whenever you can reduce its emission and thus, the amount in the atmosphere, there will be a reduction of warming from that source that can offset warming elsewhere.