Less methane, more efficiency: local innovations for sustainable livestock farming in LAC

Three technologies will enable the measurement and mitigation of enteric methane emissions, reducing the cost and time required for evaluating intake, forage digestibility, and grazing behavior for decision-making in pastoral livestock systems.

Context of the story

Livestock farming in LAC faces the challenge of reducing enteric methane emissions without losing competitiveness. However, its sustainability is fragile due to low technological implementation, which limits real-time measurement of key variables such as intake, digestibility, and methane emissions under grazing conditions, hindering the adoption of management and feeding strategies that improve animal efficiency. Faced with this gap, this initiative promotes regionally developed solutions to quantify and mitigate enteric methane emissions, aiming to reduce emission intensity by 10% per kg of meat produced.

Obtaining accurate and adequate information on forage consumption and digestibility, enteric methane emissions and ingestive behavior in grazing will allow agile decision-making to increase feed efficiency.

The Implemented Initiative

The main objective is to reduce emission intensity in pastoral cattle production systems through the implementation of three innovative, locally developed technologies: 1) The development and validation of a remote sensing-based system for the continuous measurement of enteric methane emissions and grazing behavior in grazing cattle. 2) The implementation of fecal NIRS technology to reduce the cost and time of obtaining information on intake and digestibility, key variables for decision-making in grazing cattle. 3) Optimization and validation of a locally sourced feed additive to increase weight gain (kg/day) and reduce enteric methane emissions per animal under grazing conditions.

The use of additives that manipulate enteric fermentation of the diet has the potential to improve nutrient use efficiency, reduce CH₄ emission and increase productivity

The technological solution

The project is implementing three technological innovations in Colombia and Argentina to reduce enteric methane emissions in grazing cattle. First, a low-cost remote sensor system monitors ingestive behavior (rumination, grazing, resting) in real time and continuously quantifies CH₄ emissions, overcoming the limitations of imported technologies. Second, a functional additive composed of yeast and native oregano essential oil, which studies have shown has reduced methane emissions by up to 19% and increased daily weight gain. Third, local equations are being adjusted using fecal NIRS technology to predict dry matter intake and digestibility in cattle, offering a fast, accurate, and chemical-free method. The initiative is also strengthening the technical capacities of producers and technical assistants and generating public knowledge goods to scale up climate mitigation in the region.

"Innovation consists of doing something new and different, whether solving an old problem in a new way, addressing a new problem with a proven solution, or bringing a new solution to a new problem"

— UN Innovation Network, 2019

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Type of project

Diagnostic Method

Applied

Technological

Cattle raising

Results

Significant progress has been made across its four components: In Component 1, functional validation of the methane, respiratory flow, and GPS sensor modules was advanced with tests carried out under real field conditions to obtain methane emission profiles. In Component 2, the additive dose was optimized by reducing it by 50% (from 10g to 5g/animal/day) through in vitro testing; Component 3 established the foundations of a fecal sample bank and is developing R Studio scripts for spectral analysis. In Component 4, 227 people (50.6% men, 49.3% women) were trained in 8 face-to-face workshops and 529 views were achieved in 2 webinars, while in Activity 4.2, 24 professionals (54% women) were trained.

Relevant data

First-Year Project Progress

+19Eventos

Talleres Presenciales con beneficiarios

+27

Students, teachers, and researchers trained

+3Webinars

Virtual training

+4Ponencias

Presentation of results at scientific events

+1961Personas

Trained Beneficiaries

+2Bases

Database

+3Estudiantes

Associated thesis students

-125g CH4/d

Methane emissions

The main reason for farmers adopting additives in the diet of cattle in the future is the improvement in feed efficiency, followed by the impact on animal production and health.