A prominent ruminant researcher has questioned the need to reduce dairy cow numbers in Ireland.
Dr Vaughn Holder, ruminant research director with Alltech, was responding to growing speculation that reducing dairy cow numbers would be one of the measures agreed by the Irish government to meet Ireland’s climate change targets.
Holder spoke at the Alltech ‘One’ event at Croke Park in Dublin this week.
While agreeing that reducing methane emission levels is one way of securing a short-term climate change effect, he argued strongly against the wisdom of achieving this objective, through a cattle cull in Ireland.
“Ruminant animals convert forages and other feed sources that cannot be consumed directly by humans into high quality protein.
“Large numbers of countries around the world are currently protein deficient. Ireland can play a critically important role in helping to make up this deficit.”
According to Holder, the issues of global warming and global food security must be considered together.
“Irish livestock farming systems are inherently efficient. If ruminant production levels are cut back in Ireland, this will put pressure on farmers in other regions of the world to increase their dairy output.
“But developments of this nature will actually serve to increase global greenhouse gas [GHG] emission levels, given the relative unsuitability of so many other regions around the world to produce milk and other animal proteins form forages.”
Technology to meet climate targets
Looking to the future, Holder believes that new technologies will allow farmers to meet their climate change obligations. He cited the development of enteric methane inhibitors as a case in point.
“But these products must also act to deliver improved efficiency within animal production systems,” he explained.
“The question of who will pay for these new chemistries is also relevant; will it be the farmer, the food processer or the consumer?
“Assuming they become an integral part of the food chain, farmers must be fully recognised for the investment they will make.”
Holder said that all inhibitors must be comprehensively researched before being made available commercially adding that their role in reducing methane emission levels is only one issue.
“They must also be comprehensively assessed from an environmental and food safety perspective,” he continued.
“The role of certain inhibitors in reducing enteric methane production has been identified when included in total mixed ration diets. But we need to identify ways of making these products work in a grazing scenario.
“This opens up the potential to use them effectively in third world scenarios, which is vitally important moving forward,” he said.