This article was written by Nate Birt, Vice President of Trust In Food, a Farm Journal initiative. Learn more at www.trustinfood.com
New methane-reduction research in the dairy industry aims to assess and better define factors and pathways that can cut the greenhouse gas to benefit cows while mitigating the risk of a changing climate, says Dr. Juan Tricarico, vice president of environmental research at Dairy Management Inc.
In a new video interview with Trust In Food, Farm Journal’s sustainable ag initiative, Tricarico shared insights into emerging research programs such as the Greener Cattle Initiative. That effort and others like it will study the role of feed additives, metabolic pathways, genetic traits and other factors.
“The objective is to align resources so we can fund projects to identify, develop and also validate new and existing practices that mitigate enteric emissions,” explains Tricarico in the video attached to this article.
The focus is especially acute on the heels of recent comments by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. In conjunction with the COP26 global climate conference, Vilsack announced USDA will offer incentives to farmers who adopt practices and technologies that can curb methane.
“Livestock, including dairy, can provide critical climate solutions. Sustainably managed livestock systems play an important role globally in food and nutrition security, livelihoods and nutrient cycling and carbon storage,” Vilsack stated in a news release. “Increasing the rate of adoption of feed management, manure management and digesters will be key to reducing greenhouse gas emissions including methane.”
There are two reasons feed ingredients are among researchers’ top priorities, Tricarico explains.
“Some ingredients directly inhibit emissions because they interfere somewhere with the biochemical pathway, the metabolic process, of that methane manufacture,” he shares. “The other avenue are what I usually refer to as indirect inhibitors, which are ingredients that are conducive to other metabolic pathways. … In a certain way, they encourage other pathways to be more prevalent. Because those pathways are working harder, less material is going through methane production.”
Learn more about methane research trends—and the methane questions that Tricarico finds most intriguing as a scientist—in the attached video.
