69. Evaluating Methane Mitigation Strategies in U.S. Beef Systems Using Multi Criteria Decision Making.

Abstract

Sustainable beef production represents a complex socio-environmental challenge requiring simultaneous consideration of environmental performance, economic viability, and practical feasibility. Enteric methane accounts for a 2.9% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, yet mitigation strategies vary in effectiveness, cost and adoptability. This study developed a systems-based Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) framework to evaluate Sustainable Beef Production (SBP) practices across three criteria; Emission Reduction Potential (EP), Economic Returns (ER) and Ease of Adoption (EA). Evidence from peer-reviewed literature and technical reports was standardized using a 5-point ordinal scoring system, and practice-level scores were aggregated using a frequency-weighted mean approach to construct a decision matrix. Six SBP practices were evaluated; Feed additives, Grazing Management, Genetics, Vaccines, Policy Interventions, and Precision Livestock Technology. Practices were ranked using the Weighted Sum Model (WSM) and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) under four stakeholder priority scenarios reflecting environmental, economic, adoption-focused and equal weight priorities. Ranking robustness was evaluated using 10,000 bootstrap iterations. Under equal weighting, grazing management ranked first (WSM = 0.943; TOPSIS Ci = 0.796) followed by feed additives. Across scenarios, grazing management consistently ranked first or near-first, while feed additives demonstrated strong competitiveness, particularly when economic returns were prioritized. Precision livestock technologies showed stable mid-tier performance, whereas policy, genetics, and vaccine-based strategies ranked lower within the short-term evaluation horizon. Bootstrap analysis showed narrow confidence intervals and high agreement between WSM and TOPSIS, indicating strong structural robustness of rankings. These findings suggest that grazing management and feed-based mitigation strategies represent the most balanced short-term pathways for reducing methane emissions while maintaining economic viability and adoption feasibility in U.S. beef systems. The proposed MCDM framework provides a transparent and replicable decision-support tool for evaluating sustainability strategies in complex livestock production systems.

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