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At least as early as 1989, the top U.S. lobbying group for beef producers had an opportunity to change the course of the climate crisis. Around that time, an internal document showed that the National Cattlemen鈥檚 Association (NCA) was not only aware of the beef industry鈥檚 contribution to global warming as , but it also knew there were ways to reduce livestock emissions.

Instead, as the agricultural industry鈥檚 relationship to global warming emissions started gaining widespread media attention, the association launched a long-term campaign to cast doubt on the science, seed newspapers with misinformation and influence public opinion through strategic messaging, including claims about the cattle industry鈥檚 鈥減ositive environmental contributions.鈥�

Today鈥檚 鈥渆missions speak to the strategy鈥檚 success,鈥� note the researchers of a , published on Oct. 7. The authors, professor Jennifer Jacquet and postdoctoral researcher Loredana Loy of the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, reviewed NCA documents from 1986 to 1996 to see how the organization responded to rising concerns about global warming in the 1990s.

鈥�We found ample evidence that NCA responded to global warming with a strategic communications effort with which NCA chose to deny or question global warming and the role of beef production in it as well as convince the public that beef production and consumption should not be a focal point of global warming mitigation,鈥� Jacquet and Loy wrote.

reached out to the National Cattlemen鈥檚 Beef Association for comment, but has not received a response as of publication.

鈥渢he oldest and largest national trade association representing America鈥檚 cattlemen and women,鈥� the NCA says it has more than 25,000 members and aims to promote the interests of U.S. cattle farmers. In 1996, it changed its name to the National Cattlemen鈥檚 Beef Association (NCBA).

In the 1980s and 1990s, the NCA leapt into action to fight the narrative that beef was bad for the environment. The cattle industry鈥檚 methane output had become a focus of environmentalists, with books like 鈥溾�� and 鈥溾�� suggesting that eating less beef could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight global warming. The NCA went to work crafting a counter-narrative.

According to Jacquet and Loy鈥檚 research, the NCA did this in several ways, some more overt than others. It issued press releases and talking points, distributed pro-beef literature at community events and even prevented a Ninja Turtles ABC book from being republished because it contained a section about cows鈥� methane emissions.

But most significantly, the NCA commissioned studies to show that beef鈥檚 methane emissions were negligible, and used them to influence media coverage. It hired an animal science professor to assist in these efforts, and a later analysis suggested that their media efforts were successful.

According to the EPA, the agriculture sector is the largest source of methane emissions in the United States. Around in the U.S. are enteric, meaning they originate in an animal鈥檚 digestive system. were responsible for about 72% of these enteric methane emissions, and if dairy cows are included, that number jumps to around 98%.

Yet according to the analysis, the NCA promoted the false claim that cattle are responsible for less than 0.5% of global methane emissions. Some examples of these publications are listed by the authors in a , including a 1990 New York Times article and a 1990 USA Today op-ed.

The claim appears to have originated with F.M. Byers, an animal science professor at Texas A&M, who was commissioned by the NCA in 1990. Byers was not a climate scientist, but he 鈥減roduced reports that estimated and framed methane emissions from U.S. cattle in a way that got amplified as 鈥榮cientific鈥� findings, although Byers鈥� reports have no methods section, are not reproducible, and do not appear to have been peer-reviewed,鈥� Jacquet and Loy wrote.

In one of Byers鈥� studies, he wrote:

鈥淐attle are not a significant source of greenhouse gases. The methane produced by all beef cattle in the U.S.A. amounts to less than 0.5 percent.鈥�

鈥淚 can鈥檛 recreate Byers鈥� 0.5% statistic and given how much of a massive underestimate it is, I am led to believe it was both wrong and dishonest,鈥� Jacquet writes in an email to Sentient. They note in their published findings, 鈥淭he difficulty in reproducing Byers鈥� 0.5% figure is not particularly surprising given how few details were provided in the reports.鈥� Byers鈥� original report was reviewed by Jacquet and Loy in the archives, but unfortunately, it is not available online.

The vague methods weren鈥檛 enough to stop the New York Times from , although the newspaper also provided a dissenting quote from an EPA regulator, who called Byers鈥� number 鈥渞ather low鈥�.

The same year, Byers wrote an op-ed in USA Today with the headline 鈥淓ating meat won鈥檛 harm the environment.鈥� He provided some clarity on his original claim, writing this time that 鈥渢he methane produced by all beef cattle in the USA amounts to less than 0.5% of worldwide annual production from all sources.鈥� The op-ed is not available online.

The NCA 鈥渜uestioned scientific evidence, claimed there was no causal link between cows and global warming,鈥� wrote Jacquet and Loy, and the beef organization also 鈥渁djusted the scale of analysis to make the contribution of the U.S. industry appear small relative to global totals, and emphasized that industrial systems were more efficient than non-industrial ones.鈥�

Whether global warming was even real was another part of the NCA鈥檚 narrative.

In 1994, the Chicago Tribune ran an article about an EPA grant for research into cattle鈥檚 methane emissions. This prompted a , who stated that not only is cattle production an insignificant source of methane,鈥� but there is also 鈥渋ncreasing evidence that global warming is not really occurring.鈥�

The NCA鈥檚 efforts to downplay cattle鈥檚 methane emissions made it into some news coverage. In 1991, the group commissioned an analysis of news coverage and found that of 196 articles that mentioned methane emissions, 25 published the claim that U.S. beef cattle account for only 0.5% of global methane emissions.

To push the idea that cattle ranching is good for the environment, the NCA spent $100,000 on full-page ads in the New York Times and USA Today, the researchers found. These include messaging such as 鈥淓very Day Is Earth Day For American Cattlemen,鈥� as well as dairy cows referred to as 鈥淢other Nature鈥檚 Recycling Machine.鈥�

Even a children鈥檚 book was targeted by the NCA鈥檚 strategic campaign. In 1991, Random House published 鈥�.鈥� Each page contained a letter of the alphabet with a corresponding topic and a tip for reducing one鈥檚 environmental footprint.

鈥淢 is for Meat,鈥� the book鈥檚 page for the 13th letter reads. The page noted that 鈥渃attle expel methane, a gas that makes the greenhouse effect worse.鈥� Under the 鈥渨hat can you do?鈥� section, it reads, 鈥渉ow about not eating so much meat in the first place?鈥�

According to the authors, reporting at the time suggests the NCA successfully pressured Random House not to reprint any more of the books.

Although the documents Jacquet and Loy reviewed for this study only spanned from 1986 to 1996, a previous analysis by the two found that the beef lobby long after that.

In 2006, the UN published a landmark study highlighting the livestock industry鈥檚 contributions to global warming. Once again, this prompted the National Cattlemen鈥檚 Beef Association to challenging the notion that beef is a significant contributor to climate change.

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