Innovations for reducing methane emissions in ruminants

There is pressure to reduce the impact that livestock production systems have on the environment, accompanied by an increasing global demand for meat. However, the sustainability of these production systems in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is fragile due to a low uptake of technological innovations for identifying opportunities to increase production sustainably. Currently, there are limitations in evaluating key parameters in real time at the farm level, such as intake, ingestive behavior, diet digestibility, and enteric CH₄ emissions under grazing conditions. A lack of CH₄ emissions data, impedes emission reduction capacity and the competitiveness and sustainability of livestock in LAC. The objective of this proposal is to reduce emission intensity (g of CO_2e/kg meat) in bovine production systems by 10% through the implementation of technological innovations developed in Latin America for the quantification and mitigation of greenhouse gases (GHG). The implementation of these innovations will enable improvements in sustainability and resilience of cattle farms facing the impacts of climate change in LAC. It is also expected to improve the accuracy of enteric CH₄ emission quantification in LAC, relative to those generated using the IPCC emission factors, allowing quantification of the environmental impact of production and selection of appropriate GHG mitigation strategies. The project is funded by the New Zealand Government as part of its contribution to the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA).