Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

This is a qualitative data collection. Global warming is often thought as being caused by energy production but the second largest contributor is animal production, with methane produced by cows and sheep a key component. One obvious solution is to reduce meat and milk consumption but this is unlikely to be acceptable to everyone. Moreover, grass-fed animals (such as cows and sheep) can provide other benefits than food, such as managing biodiversity. The UK has a good climate for producing grass and many of the upland regions of the UK cannot be used for cultivating anything other than grass. Grazing animals therefore provide the backbone of many rural communities.

A range of different animal breeding technologies, such as traditional genetic methods to improve production efficiency or using biotechnology tools such as semen sexing and even potentially genetic modification, could be used to mitigate the global warming impact of farm livestock. Adoption of these technologies, however, may be limited by the willingness of farmers to purchase these animals.

To this end, 42 semi-structured interviews were undertaken (of which 29 are included in this data collection) with sheep and beef cattle farmers across the UK and with industry representatives.


Main Topics:

Understand cattle and sheep farmers' uptake of breeding technologies in the context of the system of innovation in animal breeding.

Evaluate policy and other measures that could affect the uptake of breeding technologies to reduce global warming impact.