AUSTRALIAN cattle and sheep producers are set to benefit from groundbreaking technologies that will enable cost effective methane measurement in livestock.

The Zero Net Emissions Agriculture Cooperative Research Centre (ZNE-Ag CRC) today launched the first project in its research portfolio.

Just nine months since its establishment in July last year, the CRC has announced an investment of almost $1.6 million over three years to develop and validate low-cost methane measurement tools.

See Beef Central’s earlier related story on this topic: Call for industry to support carbon calculator upgrades, with major flaws found

Richard Heath

ZNE-Ag CRC chief executive officer Richard Heath said the CRC was prioritising industry identified issues by addressing agriculture’s biggest emissions challenge, methane from livestock.

Emissions from livestock, primarily cattle and sheep, accounted for about 77 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture sector. Nitrous Oxide from crop residue burning and fertiliser use accounted for about 19pc, and the remaining emissions are Carbon Dioxide from lime and urea use.

“Over the next ten years, we will focus on the research and development of innovative emissions reduction technologies, specific to Australia farming practices, with a view to giving farmers tested, cost-effective tools to lower emissions while maintaining sustainable, profitable businesses,” Mr Heath said.

Research director, Professor Ben Hayes, said current tools for measuring methane are typically expensive and challenging to deploy at scale.

“Development and validation of new methane measurement techniques and proxies for methane emissions for livestock, which are cheaper to deploy and are more widely scalable, will substantially expand and accelerate research, and importantly, will be more suited for commercial applications.” Prof Hayes said.

The CRC’s first research project involves two parts: developing and evaluating milk mid-infrared spectroscopy to predict methane emissions from dairy cattle* and developing and validating an affordable methane measuring device using Wavelength Modulation Spectroscopy, for accurate in-paddock and in-milk shed methane measurement.

“The use of these technologies in farming systems is at an early stage of development and it’s vital that we test and validate across multiple diverse environments and different feeding systems,” Prof Hayes said.

The project is a collaborative effort between CRC partners Agriculture Victoria Research, Macquarie University, Ternes Scientific, the University of New England and the University of Western Australia.

Dairy Australia managing director, David Nation said the project was a fantastic step towards having reliable, low-cost measurement of methane in-situ.

“We all know that to manage it, you’ve got to measure it. Industry research needs a low-cost methane measurement to speed up developing Australian methane breeding values,” Mr Nation said.

* ZNE CRC told Beef Central it was negotiating a range of projects concurrently – beef-specific projects included. “Project 2010 was our first project to reach contract execution and is not a reflection of the relative importance of the dairy project versus beef,” the CRC said.

About ZNE-Ag CRC

ZNE-Ag CRC is funded by the Australian Government Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources through the Cooperative Research Centers Program and the contribution of Partners.

The ZNE-Ag CRC is the the largest in the Australian CRC program’s history, securing $300 million in funding over ten years, with the Federal Government’s contribution being $87m.

In collaboration with government, industry and leading researchers, the CRC conducts large-scale, long-term research to enable the implementation of emissions reduction innovation on Australian farms. Our world-leading research aims to empower farmers and land managers to integrate emissions reduction knowledge and practices.

Source: ZNE-Ag CRC.