An insight was given into how Ireland is attempting to reduce its methane emissions in agriculture at a conference in Dublin yesterday (Wednesday, November 15).
Following the official opening by an Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, the first speaker at the Agriculture and Climate Change: Science in Action conference, which took place at the Aviva Stadium, was Prof. Peter Thorne of Maynooth University.
Prof. Thorne said: “Methane does not need to reach net zero. Carbon dioxide needs to reach net zero.
“The fundamental truth is we need to reach net zero CO2. It is everyone’s problem, it is every sector ‘s problem. We need to rebalance the conversation.”
He said that the conversation must change to “all these other sectors that…are far more heavy on CO2 emissions”.
The event was hosted by the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue, Minister of State with responsibility for research, Martin Heydon, and Minister of State for land use, Pippa Hackett.
Over 500 delegates from across the agri-food sector attended the event to hear the latest science and policy developments relating to agriculture and climate change.
Methane emissions
Prof. Sinead Waters, principal research scientist at the animal and bioscience department at Teagasc, told delegates at the conference of the work being undertaken to reduce methane emissions through the use of feed additives for livestock.
Referring to the Marginal Abatement Cost Curve (MACC), Prof. Waters said feed additives can reduce methane emissions in the second pathway with good adoption by much as 788 kilotons of CO2 equivalents by 2030.
Prof. Waters provided an update on the availability of feed additives for the beef sector, as she said the feed additive is “EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) approved for dairy”, and that she hoped “it will be approved for beef cattle in the coming year”.
However, Prof. Waters said that there are “constraints with feed additives”, as there is “insufficient evidence of a co-benefit or a performance associated with some of the feed additives”.
“More research is required to develop, adopt and evaluate methane mitigation strategies for pasture grazing systems,” she added.
To ensure providing these feed additives to farmers is convenient, Prof. Waters said that a “good mechanism of delivery to the animal” is needed, and said that the additive should be given in pellet form.
An example of the necessity to conduct this research was given by Prof. Waters, who used the example of red seaweed, as it “reduces methane emissions by up to 80% in beef and sheep”.
However, Prof. Waters told those at the conference that there were issues, including the need to import the additive from overseas, the lack of consistency from the available batches, the high cost of it, and that it is a known human carcinogen which has also shown excessive feeding can cause lesions of the wall of a ruminant stomach.
Also speaking at the conference was Prof. Donagh Berry, director of Vistamilk, who said that Irish agriculture always has the “ability to drive on through genetic improvement”.
Berry told those at the conference that Ireland was “the first country in the world to include carbon directly in its breeding indexes, our dairy last year and our beef this year”.
Through continued genetic improvements, Berry said it is possible to lower methane emissions from cattle by 25% by 2050, by reducing slaughter ages of cattle, and through the breeding of animals that produce low volumes of methane.