In the last number of years, the focus in Ireland and New Zealand has been breeding for low emission and more efficient animals within farm systems.
This was highlighted in a webinar entitled: ‘Breeding for low methane emitting animals – what’s possible?’.
The webinar delved into the cutting-edge research, showcasing collaborative efforts between the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre (NZAGRC) and Teagasc, under the New Zealand – Ireland joint Research Call on Agriculture and Climate Change.
The research call is a joint government initiative aimed at driving down agricultural emissions, enhancing the value of primary products, and addressing common challenges in the agri-food sectors of both countries.
Breeding for low emission animals
Principal dairy and beef research geneticist at Teagasc, Donagh Berry was the first of three speakers to be introduced.
Berry said that “breeding really is the tool to achieving sustainable gains in profitability”.
Berry set out a summary of its importance, as follows:
- Close to complete adoption rate – framework already in place;
- Proven to deliver across species;
- Gains build over time;
- Gains can be permanent;
- No need to change farm management;
- No direct additional costs to producers;
- Can improve many traits concurrently.
Berry spoke about the inclusion of carbon sub indexes within the deployment framework, that is accelerating the gains that can be achieved not just by increasing the profitability of the systems, but also the environmental sustainability.
Berry then spoke about how genetics has reduced enteric methane, how Ireland is the first country to have methane genetic evaluations, and how the gains are achievable.
“The technology we’re talking about here is being well-proven in both New Zealand and Ireland, and around the world, that we can achieve progress in the traits that we want to improve.
“The tool kit is already there – we know how to do this, we’ve been doing it for decades, we have the indexes of which we can easily slot in these estimates,” he said.
Berry went on to say that some disapprove of indexes and genetic evaluations, but that there is no running away from it, as you have to use bulls, and that there is “100% adoption for this technology”.
Joint New Zealand and Ireland research
New Zealand scientist at Abacusbio, Peter Amer provided his insight into the joint research between New Zealand and Ireland.
Amer firstly looked at the efficiency gains in automobiles or aircrafts, where they are making gains of 10% and 20% per decade, which means the two industries are getting a lot more fuel efficient.
“That’s the benchmark of what other industries are doing, so the question is, what can we do with cattle or sheep in New Zealand and Ireland?,” Amer asked.
The New Zealand scientist made the point that the agricultural sector need to make emission intensity gains through alternatives that are feasible.
Amer told attendees that breeding and proper genetics can reduce methane emissions by 1 to 3% per decade.
“When we start selecting for methane, we lose a little bit of the dilution of maintenance benefits, because we sacrifice some of the progress in the conventional profit rates.
“If we put too much weighting on methane, we will create this high opportunity cost to farmers,” Amer outlined.
In order to understand the exact methane potential of these animals, Amer stated that methane recording has to be done, which will add additional value through the selection for methane.
“Not only that, but recording feed intake can deliver value to the farmers through this initiative. This initiative and effectively the opportunity cost, is a lot lower,” he added.
Amer stated that we need to know how good bulls are for methane and more emphasis needs to be put on the trait, as doing so will result in a more efficient cow being produced.
The efficient cow will allow farmers to be stocked and allow for complete pasture utilisation, which will benefit profits.
“The more confidence we can build in the biology and in what we’re doing, I think the better we’ll be able to have a global impact”, Amer added.
New Zealand researcher at AgResearch, Suzanne Rowe spoke about the tools that can be used to measure methane on a cohort of animals.
Rowe has been trialling different ways of measuring the methane emissions on ewes through portable measures, such as a 3t trailer where the sheep are tested.
Rowe has been trying to find other ways of doing this in order to get a larger cohort of animals tested in a short space of time – oral swabs and gastric tubes have been successful on ewes.
However, the next step is to try and develop the accuracy of the oral swabs and trial on other animals, as this method is non-invasive and has the potential to do a large amount in a short space of time.
Genetic gains will come at a cost, but you can reap the benefits of an efficient animal down the line.