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Decrease in greenhouse gas emissions found to be a consequence of changes in post-Soviet food systems

September 5th, 2019 Yury Nurmeev, Larisa Busil
Decrease in greenhouse gas emissions found to be a consequence of changes in post-Soviet food systems
Figure 2. GHG emissions of food production and trade within the territory of the former Soviet Union (FSU). (A): Net cumulative change in GHG emissions of all years from 1992 to 2011 minus the average emissions of 1986 to 1991. Increasing crop exports resulted in a negative net cumulative change in emissions due to the consumption-based approach followed in this study. (B): annual rate of soil organic carbon sequestration on cropland that was abandoned after 1991 in the FSU. (C): GHG emissions embodied in domestic livestock production and in imports of livestock products to the FSU. (D): GHG emissions embodied in domestic crop production, crop exports, and imports of crops to the FSU. Note the different y-axis scales. Dashed vertical lines mark the end of the Soviet Union. Light-colored shades represent the 95% confidence intervals. Credit: Kazan Federal University

A paper was published in Environmental Research Letters.

As the authors posit, the collapse of the Soviet Union led to decreasing meat product consumption, abandonment of cultivated land, and restructuring of food sales chains; which, in turn, elicited a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions.

Leading Research Associate of the Space Ecology Lab Alexander Prischepov elucidates, "The decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, mostly carbon dioxide, is linked to the abandonment of arable land. There are about 70 to 80 million hectares of abandoned fields in Russia now. It's good for nature when there is a controlled abandonment process. Ecosystems are rejuvenated, soils are at rest, and carbon is deposited in them. If the abandonment process is uncontrolled, the land can be occupied by forests and hogweed; and more forests means that fires are more probable. Also, an afforested land plot is less economically viable when considered for agricultural use."

Globally, animal husbandry contributes 14.5% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. It's about the same as the combined volume of emissions from all types of vehicles, including cars, ships, airplanes, etc.

Decrease in greenhouse gas emissions found to be a consequence of changes in post-Soviet food systems
Figure 1. Work flow. Blue boxes represent data sources and models and grey boxes contain output datasets and results. LEAP: Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance Model. GLEAM: Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model. FSU: former Soviet Union. Credit: Kazan Federal University

The collapse of the Soviet Union, as the paper states, led to a decrease in income, which was the reason for the lowering meat and dairy consumption. Agricultural sales chains also changed. As a result, the total emission decreased by 7.61 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from 1992 to 2001.

"The main factors of the decrease were the falling consumption of beef in the 1990s, increasing beef imports after 2000, mainly from Latin America, and the bonding of carbon in abandoned agricultural soils. As an example, this is approximately equal to a quarter of carbon dioxide emissions resulting from deforestation in Latin America in 1992—2001," says Prischepov.

Currently, Russia emits about 2.5 billion tons of greenhouse gases a year. The researchers are convinced that the decrease of emission in the former USSR may contribute to an appropriate increase in emissions in the countries—main exporters of agricultural goods to Russia and its neighbors.

  • Decrease in greenhouse gas emissions found to be a consequence of changes in post-Soviet food systems
    Figure 3. GHG emissions embodied in domestic livestock consumption and imports of livestock products to the FSU. Note: emissions from consumption include emissions from imports. Dashed vertical lines mark the end of the Soviet Union. GHG emissions were estimated by multiplying per capita consumption (kg/capita/year) with emission intensity (kg CO2e/kg livestock product). For imports, we multiplied the import quantity with the emission intensity. Colored shades represent the 95% uncertainty intervals. Note the different y-axis scales. Credit: Kazan Federal University
  • Decrease in greenhouse gas emissions found to be a consequence of changes in post-Soviet food systems
    Figure 4. Contribution of changes in population, per-capita consumption, and emission intensity to changes in emissions from the consumption of beef (A) and other livestock products than beef (B) with and without trade for two periods. Individual livestock products are shown in figure S11. Credit: Kazan Federal University

More information:
Large greenhouse gas savings due to changes in the post-Soviet food systems

iopscience.iop.org/article/10. … 088/1748-9326/ab1cf1

Florian Schierhorn, Thomas Kastner2, Tobias Kuemmerle, Patrick Meyfroidt, Irina Kurganova, Alexander V Prishchepov, Karl-Heinz Erb, Richard A Houghton and Daniel Müller


Provided by Kazan Federal University

Citation: Decrease in greenhouse gas emissions found to be a consequence of changes in post-Soviet food systems (2019, September 5) retrieved 19 September 2025 from https://sciencex.com/wire-news/329133942/decrease-in-greenhouse-gas-emissions-found-to-be-a-consequence-o.html
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