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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/11/how-many-cattle-are-there-in-australia-we-may-be-out-by-10-million>
"Australia has underestimated how many cattle it has by about 10 million, with
significant implications for tracking greenhouse gas emissions, a Queensland
researcher has said.
Cows’ methane-laden burps are responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas
emissions emitted by the red meat sector, which has an aspirational goal of net
zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Official estimates, published by the
Australian Bureau of Statistics, state there are 26 million beef and dairy
cattle in Australia in 2024.
But a 2021 report by the University of Queensland, published in the CSIRO
Publishing journal
Animal Production Science, concluded the real number could
be about 35 million – 56-75% higher than the figures published by the ABS and
widely accepted by government and the red meat industry. The ABS estimate is
also what is used to calculate emissions from the red meat industry.
Geoffry Fordyce is a former veterinary scientist from the University of
Queensland and lead author of the report. He said the findings further
challenges the assumption that there has been a 65% reduction in emissions from
Australia’s red meat industry on 2005 levels.
That reduction was calculated in another report by the CSIRO, commissioned by
Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA), and has already been called into question
by scientists who say it is also based on unreliable land clearing data.
“They’re working with faulty data,” Fordyce said. “If they admit there’s 10
million more cattle than they originally thought, they’ve got a real problem.”
The ABS figures are based on surveys completed by farmers, which are then
extrapolated into national figures. Fordyce, who has spent more than 40 years
working on cattle stations across Queensland and south-east Asia, said farmers
“openly admit they underreport what they’ve got”.
“There’s all sorts of sentiment associated with big brother, the taxation
office and all the rest of it,” he said. “They just don’t want anyone to know
what they’re really doing.”"
I suspect to get a reliable figure we should consider using satellite images
with AI software that can actually count cattle.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
