Following the herd to help reduce emissions

Identifying and including a low-methane trait in livestock breeding programmes could be the answer to the methane problem faced by animal farmers globally. But how conclusive is the research and will it impact production traits? Lindi Botha reports.

- Lindi Botha

For most South African farmers, surviving the cost-price squeeze is a far greater consideration than reducing methane emissions. While South Africans are not currently facing pressure to reduce carbon footprints like Europe and the US, emissions will need to be tackled in the near future. Considering the pressure the livestock industry faces globally for their methane emission contribution to greenhouse gases (GHG), it is expected that SA farmers will not be spared the scrutiny.

The good news is that, as the focus on methane emissions from livestock production has intensified, so has research to reduce methane production in livestock. And as gene sequencing has become common among breeders to select the right qualities for their herd, genes that reduce methane are under the spotlight.

About 90% of methane from cows is excreted by burping rumen gases from their mouths. This is a rumen fermentation by-product and is often referred to as enteric methane emissions. Multiple studies now show that the cow’s genetic make-up accounts for 24% of methane emission variation, with another 7% attributed to the rumen microbiome. Determining what genes affect rumen gases, and what effect these genes will have on production if deselected, has become a burning question, and one that requires far more research before conclusions can be drawn.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ (FAO) report on methane emissions in livestock, published in September this year, states that at present there are only a few instances where methane is taken into consideration in breeding programmes across the world.

FAST FACTS

Genetics and the gut microbiome play a big role in methane production in cows.