But various factors have thrust methane mitigation into a much broader discussion of late, among them the Global Methane Pledge announced last November at the United Nations Climate Change Conference. Agriculture, and specifically livestock operations such as dairy, are in the crosshairs of a worldwide effort to reduce methane emissions.
I look at this as an opportunity to continue advancing science to help farmers on their sustainability journey. This is why I’m excited about the Greener Cattle Initiative (GCI), a partnership between the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy and Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research, plus eight additional organizations, to fund research on enteric methane-reducing solutions.
GCI is accepting applications to award $4.67 million in grants to identify and develop or validate existing options to reduce enteric methane emissions from cattle.
This is the sort of collaborative effort that can continue building a strong scientific foundation and show customers and consumers that milk is produced in the U.S. in ways that are good for the planet.
As the focus on methane intensifies, so do the development of various commercial options for farmers to reduce emissions. For example, we are seeing a surge of news on feed additives that claim to reduce enteric methane, which is produced in the rumen during the digestion process by our country’s dairy cattle and released via cow burps. It’s easy to read promising headlines and get excited about the potential impact a particular feed additive might offer, but their development and adoption is not as easy as it appears.
As a scientist, I am excited by ideas to develop and market methane mitigation options for farmers to choose from, depending on their individual farming conditions. However, all mitigation options that go into a dairy cow ration must deliver in two areas that are not negotiable in my book:
- Is the feed product safe for the cows?
- Is the milk from cows fed the product safe for human consumption?
There is no wiggle room here. Animal health and food safety are cornerstones of the dairy industry that cannot be compromised.
Another important part to remember is that there is no general approach that can address all questions on feed additives. They all are different, so each requires its own unique due diligence. This is research that needs to be led by the companies developing and marketing these additives and further tested by independent or university research scientists. The testing needs to be done under a variety of conditions and repeated many times to produce quantifiable results that farmers can trust. I have spoken with many farmers and the one thing they consistently demand is that a new feed product or innovation must be safe for their cows.
There are some feed additives that are highly effective or have great potential in reducing enteric emissions, such as red seaweed, which accumulates bromoform. There are only a few studies on the mitigation effects of feeding seaweed, and these found the reductions are large. The methane-inhibiting properties of bromoform are based on solid research, but an adequate number of randomized, controlled trials – considered the gold standard of research – addressing its potential safety is not yet available. So, research efforts must be done in this area to build a solid-use case for seaweed-based additives.
One other aspect to remember is that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) hasn’t defined a regulatory pathway for feed additives to claim environmental benefits (e.g., enteric methane reduction). Any company that wishes to include such a claim in a feed product label must currently seek approval as a new drug, which is a lengthy and costly process. So, an additive such as 3-nitrooxypropanol (3-NOP), which has been studied extensively, cannot yet enter the marketplace if its manufacturer intends to include an environmental claim on its label.
3-NOP, branded as Bovaer, recently was declared safe to use by the European Food Safety Agency but we’ll need to see how regulatory approval and registration play out here in the U.S.
In the meantime, we must remember to let the science lead us. I know it’s not always easy to wait for more information when technologies seem like silver-bullet solutions. I also get excited over the ingenuity, but the scientist in me knows we cannot afford to move too fast at the expense of safety.
We need to double down on efforts such as GCI that can identify and fund the necessary research and offer products and practices that are good for animals and people.
We owe it to the farmers, their cows and the consumers who trust them to produce food that is safe.
To learn more about your national dairy checkoff, visit www.USDairy.com or send a request to join our Facebook group. To reach us directly, send an email to TalkToTheCheckoff@dairy.org.
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