The livestock sector remains a significant contributor to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, particularly through cattle production. This study evaluates the climate efficiency of the United Kingdom’s cattle meat sector between 2016 and 2021 using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) under a Constant Returns to Scale (CRS) model. Key input variables included agricultural land use, emission intensity, methane emissions, and total animal emissions, while cattle meat production served as the output variable. The analysis reveals that, despite fluctuations, average efficiency scores remained below the optimal threshold, indicating that up to 4.33% of land and 7.06% of emissions intensity could potentially be reduced without compromising output. The study identifies 2020 as the only fully efficient year, while the remaining years exhibit varying degrees of inefficiency. These findings underscore opportunities for resource optimization and mitigation within the UK cattle sector. Drawing from the UK’s policy experience, this study discusses implications for developing countries, particularly Indonesia, where livestock-related GHG emissions continue to rise. The results support the need for targeted interventions, such as emission-efficient feed strategies and improved land use practices, as part of broader Net-Zero commitments.
Cite this paper
Anggraeni, G. and Lin, C. (2025). Benchmarking Climate Efficiency in UK Cattle Farming: Lessons for Emissions Mitigation in Emerging Agricultural Economies. Open Access Library Journal, 12, e13493. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/oalib.1113493.
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (2021) Tackling Climate Change through Livestock: A Global Assessment of Emis-sions and Mitigation Opportunities. http://www.fao.org
Lauk, C., Magerl, A., le Noë, J., Theurl, M.C. and Gingrich, S. (2024) Analyzing Long-Term Dynamics of Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Austria, 1830-2018. Science of The Total Environment, 911, Article 168667. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.168667
Agriculture and Horti-culture Development Board (AHDB) (2024) Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Agriculture. https://ahdb.org.uk/knowledge-library/greenhouse-gas-emissions-agriculture
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (2013) Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Ruminant Supply Chains: A Global Life Cycle Assessment. http://www.fao.org
Mcleod, E., Anthony, K.R.N., Mumby, P.J., Maynard, J., Beeden, R., Graham, N.A.J., et al. (2019) The Future of Resilience-Based Management in Coral Reef Ecosystems. Journal of Environmental Management, 233, 291-301. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.11.034
Vlontzos, G. and Pardalos, P.M. (2017) Assess and Prognosticate Green House Gas Emissions from Agricultural Production of EU Countries, by Implementing, DEA Window Analysis and Artificial Neural Networks. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 76, 155-162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2017.03.054
Wang, R. (2018) Energy Efficiency in China’s Industry Sectors: A Non-Parametric Production Frontier Approach Analysis. Journal of Cleaner Production, 200, 880-889. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.07.277
Ray, S.C. and Ghose, A. (2014) Production Efficiency in Indian Agri-culture: An Assessment of the Post Green Revolution Years. Omega, 44, 58-69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.omega.2013.08.005
Bai, C., Du, K., Yu, Y. and Feng, C. (2019) Understanding the Trend of Total Factor Carbon Productivity in the World: Insights from Convergence Analysis. Energy Economics, 81, 698-708. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2019.05.004
Headey, D., Alauddin, M. and Rao, D.S.P. (2010) Explaining Agricul-tural Productivity Growth: An International Perspective. Agricultural Economics, 41, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1574-0862.2009.00420.x
Ramly, A.R. and Hakim, A. (2017) Bank Efficiency Modeling in Indonesia: Comparison Between Islamic Banks and Conventional Banks. Esensi: Jurnal Bisnis dan Manajemen, 7, 131-148. https://doi.org/10.15408/ess.v7i2.4989
Charnes, A., Cooper, W.W. and Rhodes, E. (1978) Measuring the Efficiency of Decision Making Units. European Journal of Operational Research, 2, 429-444. https://doi.org/10.1016/0377-2217(78)90138-8
Coelli, T.J. (2008) A Guide to DEAP Version 2.1: A Data Envelop-ment Analysis (Computer) Program. Working Paper of the University of New England/Center for Efficiency and Productivi-ty Analysis.
Kapsoli, M.J., Mogues, M.T. and Verdier, M.G. (2023) Benchmarking Infrastructure Using Public Invest-ment Efficiency Frontiers. IMF Working Papers, 2023, 1-32. https://doi.org/10.5089/9798400243196.001
Banker, R.D. and Natarajan, R. (2008) Evaluating Contextual Variables Affecting Productivity Using Data Envelopment Analysis. Operations Research, 56, 48-58. https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.1070.0460
Qi, X. and Guo, B. (2014) Determining Common Weights in Data Envelopment Analysis with Shannon’s Entropy. Entropy, 16, 6394-6414. https://doi.org/10.3390/e16126394
Tone, K. (2001) A Slacks-Based Measure of Efficiency in Data Envelopment Analysis. European Journal of Operational Research, 130, 498-509. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0377-2217(99)00407-5
Kunchaikarn, S., Mankeb, P. and Suwanmaneepong, S. (2022) Economic Efficiency of Beef Cattle Production in Thailand. Journal of Management Information and Decision Science, 25, 1-9.
Ricciardi, V., Mehrabi, Z., Wittman, H., James, D. and Ramankutty, N. (2021) Higher Yields and More Biodiversity on Smaller Farms. Nature Sustainability, 4, 651-657. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00699-2
Dong, G., Wang, Z. and Mao, X. (2018) Production Efficiency and GHG Emissions Reduction Potential Evaluation in the Crop Production Sys-tem Based on Emergy Synthesis and Nonseparable Undesirable Output DEA: A Case Study in Zhejiang Province, China. PLOS ONE, 13, e0206680. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0206680
Mohammadi, A., Venkatesh, G., Eskandari, S. and Rafiee, S. (2022) Eco-Efficiency Analysis to Improve Environmental Performance of Wheat Production. Agriculture, 12, 1031. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture12071031
Forster, P., Storelvmo, T., Armour, K., Collins, W., Dufresne, J.L., Frame, D. and Lunt, D.J. (2021) The Earth’s Energy Budget, Climate Feedbacks, Climate Sensitivi-ty. Cli-mate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to The Sixth Assessment Report of the In-tergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press.
Brown, P., Cardenas, L., Choudrie, S., Del, V.S., Karagianni, E., MacCarthy, J., Mullen, P., Passant, N., Richmond, B., Thistlethwaite, G., Thomson, A. and Wakeling, D. (2022) UK Greenhouse Gas Inventory, 1990 to 2020: Annual Report for Submission under the Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Science Research Programmed of the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. UK NIR 2022 (Issue 1).
Pareliussen, J., Crowe, D., Kruse, T. and Glocker, D. (2022) Policies to Reach Net Zero Emissions in The United Kingdom. OECD Economics Department Working Papers No. 1742.
Gütschow, J., Gunther, A., Jeffery, M.L. and Gieseke, R. (2021) The PRIMA PHIST National Historical Emissions Time Series (1850-2018), V.2.2. Zenodo Open Access Repository.
Rogelj, J., Shindell, D. and Jiang, K. (2018) Mitigation Pathways Compatible with 1.5°C in the Context of Sustainable Development. In: Masson-Delmotte, V., et al., Eds., Global Warming of 1.5°C, IPCC. https://www.ipcc.ch/
Eory, V., Maire, J., MacLeod, M., Sykes, A., Barnes, A., Rees, R.M., Topp, C. F.E. and Wall. E. (2020) Non-CO2 Abatement in the UK Agricultural Sector by 2050: Summary Report Submitted to Support the 6th Car-bon Budget in the UK. Scotland’s Rural College, Prepared for the Committee on Climate Change.
Mason, R., Rees, Y., Ballinger, A. and Chowdhury, T. (2021) Farm-Level Interventions to Reduce Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Emissions. EUNOMIA Innovation for Agriculture, RAU and Reading University.
