Recently, the Agricultural Clean Watershed Innovation Team at the Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture, CAAS, quantified the spatiotemporal evolution patterns of non-CO₂ GHG emissions from the crop-livestock system and simulated emission reduction potential over the next four decades, offering a new perspective for achieving agricultural carbon neutrality goals. The related findings have been published in Resources, Environment and Sustainability.

The crop-livestock system is pivotal to achieving agricultural carbon neutrality. However, cross-country differences in crop-livestock production emissions, underlying driving mechanisms, and the effectiveness of mitigation measures remain unclear, hindering the development of scientific emission reduction solutions that can be applied across regions.

Research has confirmed the decoupling of non-CO₂ GHG emissions from economic growth in crop-livestock systems in developed countries, while highlighting persistent challenges in developing regions. By analyzing the decoupling patterns between economic development and carbon emissions, the study proposes for the first time that "per capita GDP of USD 3,000" serves as a critical threshold for decoupling in developing countries, providing key scientific evidence for formulating differentiated emission reduction strategies in global agriculture. The related findings emphasize that promoting livestock restructuring toward low-emission species, innovating manure management technologies, and guiding dietary structure optimization will serve as key levers to coordinate food security with carbon neutrality goals.

This study was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program and the Key Laboratory of Agricultural and Rural Ecological Environment of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

Linkage: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resenv.2025.100248