Study sheds light on global risk of heat stress to cattle

Research shows climate change may have a negative impact on cattle farming in some regions, says Jorisna Bonthuys. Farmers must do more to secure their herd's welfare and their own bottom line.

- Jorisna Bonthuys

More than a billion cows across the globe could be exposed to heat stress by 2100. New research on this topic was recently published in the journal Environmental Research Letters. In this paper, Dr Michelle North and her co-authors explore the linkages between cattle farming, unchecked climate change and land use practices, and heat stress.

In this cross-institutional, transdisciplinary study, North, a veterinarian and climate change researcher at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, collaborated with three other scientists from South Africa and the US: Dr Chris Trisos, Birgitt Ouweneel and James Franke. Trisos is an ecologist and climate-change researcher at the University of Cape Town’s African Climate and Development Institute, and Ouweneel is a researcher linked to the same institute. Franke is a postgraduate earth scientist at the University of Chicago.

The team studied how heat stress affects cattle, predicted how land use and emissions may increase heat risk, and recommended adapting farming practices in certain areas. The researchers analysed today’s heat and humidity conditions across the world. They estimated how these conditions will affect cattle in future decades, depending on different levels of emissions and forms of land use.

They project that cattle will potentially face lethal heat stress in regions such as tropical South America, Central America, Equatorial Africa, and South and Southeast Asia by the end of this century.

HEAT STRESS POSES CHALLENGES 

Their findings underscore heat stress as a present and future challenge for livestock farmers.