A methane-inhibiting feed additive that can reduce livestock emissions by up to 30% is expected to become commercially available in Ireland later in 2022.
Addressing a recent Joint Oireachtas Committee on Environment and Climate Action, agricultural inspector at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM), Dale Crammond, explained that the product has recently been given a positive opinion by the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA).
This will pave the way for the availability of the first-ever commercial feed additive – 3-Nitrooxypropanol, referred to as 3NOP – to tackle methane emissions from livestock.
The DAFM official was answering a question from Sinn Féin’s Senator Lynn Boylan regarding the process by which such feed additives will be administered to our pasture-based livestock, and if there was a risk that the system would move to a more feedlot style to facilitate the feeding of such additives.
Explaining, he said that 3NOP will, initially, be targetted at animals who are housed over the winter period.
The next development stage of that feed additive is a slow-release bolus, he added, that can be available to cattle all year round.
“The challenge is to take that 3NOP product and develop a slow-release bolus for that product that can be delivered to animals over the grazing period when they are out at pasture throughout the year.
“One of the ways we can target that is when the animals come in for milking in the morning, we can feed this to the animal through a slow-release bolus and we can continually do that over the grazing period,” he said.
But, he added that the expectation is that such a product is still a couple of years away from market.
“We probably don’t envisage that coming until 2024 or 2025. In the short-term, the focus will be on the housed animals over the winter and that was identified in the Climate Action Plan.”
In addressing the concern about moving away from a pasture-based system, chief inspector at the DAFM, Bill Callanan said that Irish agriculture’s unique selling point is the grass-fed, rain-based system on which it operates.
“And we always have to be careful that we are not suggesting any move away from that,” he said.
“There are quite a lot of systems, internationally, where animals are permanently housed and that is not a model that we would support here.”
While he acknowledged that there are still some technical issues around the availability and use of methane-reducing feed additives, he said there is ongoing research aimed at achieving this goal in other ways.
One such project is showing that, based on their characteristics, there is quite a difference between individual animals in relation to the amount of methane that they produce.
“As a scientist, when you see that variability, then you can breed for that trait. There is very good work going on in that regard.
The second project, in association with Teagasc, is looking at multiple varieties of feed additives from olives to oils, and from seaweed to commercial products.
“Longer term, there will be lots of claims here and we need to ensure that these are valid and authenticated. So, the research around Meth-Abate is looking at a number of different products but there are specific challenges in terms of the use of feed additives.
When asked about the volume required, and availability of a product such as seaweed, in the methane-reducing task at hand, Dale Crammond said it is something they are looking into closely.
“In terms of seaweed, the results that are coming in, globally, for the reduction of methane are very, very high but that has to be balanced in terms of the ability to produce large quantities of seaweed along our coastline to feed to our animals that would make a material difference.
“There is work to be done there,” he said.