We analyse the current and future environmental impact of beef in Argentina, comparing four environmental dimensions (GHG, ecotoxicity, erosion and biodiversity) across 21 cow-calf systems and 47 finishing systems. The cow-calf and the finishing stages contributed equally to beef production, but impacts varied between stages (70 % of soil erosion and 75 % of GHG emissions occurred during the cow-calf stage, whereas 72 % of impact on biodiversity and 99 % of pesticide ecotoxicity occurred during the finishing stage). More intensive systems showed higher ecotoxicity and impact on biodiversity, and lower emissions and erosion per kg of beef than the more extensive systems. However, the intensity of this trade-off varied regionally, being more noticeable in the central regions of the Pampas and less so in the peripheric non-pampean regions. We also projected future beef production and environmental impacts under different production scenarios and found that it might be possible to increase beef production in Argentina by 15 % without a significant increase in the environmental impact of the sector (given a reduction of the ecotoxicological impact of crop production). We also showed that this could be achieved by adopting available practices and that the sector's self-set goals are compatible with this scenario.

我们分析了阿根廷牛肉当前和未来的环境影响，比较了21个牛犊牛系统和47个育肥系统的四个环境维度（GHG，生态毒性，侵蚀和生物多样性）。牛犊和肥育阶段对牛肉生产的贡献相同，但各阶段的影响各不相同（在牛犊阶段发生了70％的土壤侵蚀和75％的温室气体排放，而对生物多样性的影响为72％，对牛犊的影响为99％）。农药的生态毒性发生在整理阶段）。与更广泛的系统相比，更密集的系统显示出更高的生态毒性和对生物多样性的影响，每公斤牛肉的排放量和侵蚀量更低。但是，这种权衡的强度因地区而异，在潘帕斯州的中部地区更为明显，而在周边的非潘帕斯地区则较少。我们还预测了不同生产情景下牛肉的未来产量和对环境的影响，发现在不显着增加该部门的环境影响的情况下，阿根廷的牛肉产量有可能增加15％（因为减少了作物的生态毒理学影响）生产）。我们还表明，可以通过采用可用的实践来实现这一目标，并且该行业的自我设定目标与这种情况兼容。