Covering poo lagoons could cut most dairy farm methane

Dairy farms produce huge amounts of potent greenhouse gases.

- WORDS SASCHA PARE

But now scientists say these farms can slash their methane emissions by covering cow-poo ponds with a giant tarp. Scientists recorded an 80 per cent reduction in the methane emissions of a dairy farm in California after its owners installed a 'digester', a system that traps gases over manure ponds and converts them into fuel, according to a new study published in the journal Global Change Biology Bioenergy. “When the system is built well and managed carefully, the emissions can really drop. That's what we saw here,” said Francesca Hopkins, an assistant professor of climate change and sustainability at the University of California, Riverside.