In their article discussing the impacts of farm animal production on climate change, Koneswaran and Nierenberg (2008) called for "immediate and far-reaching changes in current animal agriculture practices" to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. One of their recommendations was to switch to organic livestock production, stating that raising cattle for beef organically on grass, in contrast to fattening confined cattle on concentrated feed, may emit 40% less GHGs and consume 85% less energy than conventionally produced beef.
These claims are terribly misleading. Koneswaran and Nierenberg (2008) compared organic beef produced in Sweden (22.3 kg of carbon dioxide-equivalent GHG emissions per kilogram of beef) with unusual and resource-intensive Kobe beef production in Japan (36.4 kg of CO2-equivalent GHG emissions per kilogram) (Cederberg and Stadig 2003; Ogino et al. 2007). (Correspondence)