White House strategy will boost efforts to cut cattle carbon emissions
09/04/2014
In a strategy document at the end of March, the US government praised the work of an Illinois-based dairy research organisation called the Innovation Center for US Dairy’s Sustainability Council, whose efforts focus on voluntary actions through which farmers can reduce methane emissions from their cattle in cost-effective ways.
The centre’s chief executive, Tom Gallagher, reacted to the news by saying it would encourage farmers to continue to look for new ways of reducing methane emissions from their herds.
Ideas the centre is working on include dietary supplements to lower methane emissions from cows and even tanks connected to the mouths of cattle (the end from which almost all emissions come, contrary to popular belief) to capture methane for use as biogas.
All measures to reduce emissions from cattle are welcome as livestock accounts for a large share of carbon emissions from agriculture, although, globally, rice’s share is greater. And when cattle eat grass, new grass grows capturing carbon and mitigating the overall impact of cattle farming.
Image shows Holstein cattle, courtesy of the US Department of Agriculture.
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