Part 3: Achieving reductions without breaking the bank
When it comes to what happens in just about every economic sector, including agriculture, keep in mind that “As goes California, so goes the nation.” It may take a while, but the Golden State is often the harbinger of what will happen in the rest of America.
Dr. Frank Mitloehner, professor and air quality Extension specialist at UC-Davis and director of the CLEAR Center, reported what he learned during a workshop organized by the California Air Resources Board, the state’s leading agency on the topic of reduction of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from the dairy sector.
The agency predicts the reduction of GHGs from the California dairy sector to be 6.6 million metric tons by 2030. However, the estimate didn’t consider the use of feed additives, which Mitloehner said would help achieve the goal.
California decided to have a voluntary, incentive-based approach for reduction efforts. “Rather than using rules and regulations and shoving it down people’s throats, California’s legislature decided to financially incentivize the reduction of emissions,” said Mitloehner. “For example, if you have a digester and produce biogas, sell the biogas for fuel, you get credits. For feed additives that reduce enteric methane, there will be a financial incentive.”
He predicted that in five years, half of all dairy manure produced in California will end up in a covered lagoon producing fuels and/or power. Other means of reducing enteric methane include feed additives such as seaweed, fatty acids, oregano and tannins.
One of the newest innovations is the methane inhibitor 3-NOP, which inhibits an enzyme crucial to the final stage of methane synthesis in the rumen. Methane emission is a heritable trait, which means dairy farmers can test whether a cow is a high or low methane producer and use the low methane cows for breeding.
There’s potential additional income for dairy farmers who can sell low-carbon fuel standard and other credits related to reducing emissions. “If a dairy has an additional income stream for doing something that doesn’t break the bank,” said Mitloehner, “I’m all for it. It’s a good thing to diversify the income stream of a dairy.”
What will not work to reduce the environmental footprint of livestock is for people to change what they eat. “It’s a pipe dream of some activists,” said Mitloehner. “It’s also a pipe dream of the majority of media that are touting it. It isn’t going to work – people eat animal source foods for various reasons: their culture, preference, nutrition. It’s a personal decision what you eat, and I resent any kind of attempt to make people eat something some people think should be eaten.”
To significantly reduce emissions from the food system, Mitloehner said it’s important to work with farmers and not against them. “Once you explain to farmers how they contribute to an issue and what they can do to reduce it, miracles occur,” he said.
On-farm methane digesters play a significant role in capturing methane and converting biogas to electricity. Photo by Sally Colby
Scientists who cooperate with developing on-farm mitigation need public funding, not just industry funding. “If there’s one angle [activists] use to discredit people like me,” said Mitloehner, “it’s by saying ‘Look where they get their money’ – they can’t be trusted because they get money from industry. We need to have public funding to show that the public has interest in making the agriculture sector more sustainable.”
One hiccup in the effort is that while the U.S. and other developed countries are working on better efficiency, 80% of the total environmental footprint of animal ag globally occurs in developing countries.
“The reason is because herd sizes are huge, and productivity per animal is dismal,” said Mitloehner. “That is why the focus should be on developing countries and improving their productivity. That doesn’t mean making their farms look like ours, but it means helping them have healthier, more productive animals.”
Mitloehner is optimistic about realizing goals without compromising animal agriculture. He described some upcoming projects. One project is a long-term study on Bovaer® both at UC-Davis and on a 2,000-cow commercial dairy. Bovaer is FDA approved as a dairy feed additive.
He is also doing research on early life programming in which calves are fed a specific diet containing 3-NOP for their first two months for life-long impacts on gut health and reduced methane emissions.
“I’m very interested in the breeding aspect,” said Mitloeher. “Genomic testing of cows for low methane and reducing herd emissions by 30% – that is an exciting angle. We also do research on animal manure. The microbes that produce methane hate oxygen – they must have anaerobic conditions, and they have those conditions in a lagoon and in the rumen. If we oxygenate lagoons, that would make the life of methanogens [methane-forming microbes] miserable.”
Mitloehner is currently conducting research on nanobubblers, devices placed next to the lagoon inlet to infuse fine oxygen bubbles into the waste stream. The goal is to oxygenate the inlet, not the entire lagoon, and the result would negatively impact methanogens.
While these developments are hopeful, it’s important that the dairy industry and related industries are sure their promises can be kept in order to gain the trust of the public.
Mitloehner said it’s possible to achieve sizeable reductions to net zero, or climate neutrality, the point at which the industry doesn’t add more warming. “Or go beyond and reduce warming,” he said. “It’s possible if we take the methane bull by the horns.”
See part 1 of this story by clicking here.
Find part 2 by clicking here.
by Sally Colby
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