Data to explore circular manureshed management in beef supply chains of the United States and western Canada

Circular management of beef supply chains holds great promise for
improving sustainability from grazing agroecosystem to dinner plate.
In the United States and Canada, one approach to circularity entails
transporting manure nutrients from cattle produced in feedlots back
to the grazing agroecosystems where they originated to enrich
haylands for further grazing cattle production. We provide data to
assess this strategy centered around three grazing agroecosystems:
Florida, New Mexico, and the provincial assemblage of Manitoba,
Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia. We describe four datasets
that can be used to estimate the potential nutrient utilization of
hay fed to grazing cattle in the three grazing agroecosystems and
the magnitudes of feedlot manure nutrients available for transport
back to them. We found that although biogeography and management
differ among the three grazing agroecosystems, the hay allocated for
grazing cattle represented approximately 65% of the total harvested
hay produced per agroecosystem after accounting for harvest losses,
and that on average all three areas exported about 450,000 cattle
annually for feedlot, pasture, and slaughter to states across the
US. Although we highlight only three grazingland settings, our
approach relies on methods that could ultimately be scaled
nationally and internationally, with applicability to other animal
industries for which circular management is an aspiration for
sustainability outcomes.

牛肉供应链（beef supply chains）的循环管理（circular management），对于从放牧型农业生态系统（grazing agroecosystem）到餐盘全链路的可持续性提升具有重大潜力。
在美国与加拿大，实现循环性的一种路径是将育肥场（feedlot）肉牛产生的粪肥养分，运回其原生的放牧型农业生态系统，以改良干草牧场（haylands），支撑后续肉牛放牧生产。
本数据集围绕三类放牧型农业生态系统评估该策略，分别为美国佛罗里达州、新墨西哥州，以及加拿大曼尼托巴省、萨斯喀彻温省、阿尔伯塔省、不列颠哥伦比亚省组成的区域集群。
本研究共包含四类数据集，可用于估算三类放牧型农业生态系统中饲喂放牧肉牛的干草的潜在养分利用率，以及可运回上述生态系统的育肥场粪肥养分总量。
研究结果显示，尽管三类放牧型农业生态系统的生物地理特征与管理模式存在差异，但扣除收割损耗后，分配给放牧肉牛的干草约占各生态系统总收割干草量的65%；且上述三类区域年均约有45万头肉牛被外销至美国各州，用于育肥、放牧或屠宰。
尽管本研究仅聚焦三类放牧场地场景，但其依托的方法最终可在全国乃至全球范围内推广，且可应用于其他将循环管理作为可持续性提升目标的畜牧产业。