Hello everyone! Previously in post #7, we talked about enteric fermentation and its links to climate change from the huge amounts of methane released into the atmosphere. Now, we will discuss some ways that we can cut down on methane emissions per unit of output as well as efficiently capturing the methane to change it to other useful forms of energy.

There are a variety of options that we can consider to reduce the production of methane gas, where all the below proposed solutions aim at improving the quantity and quality of the livestock diet.  Firstly, enteric fermentation emissions can be minimised by increasing feed quantity per head. In doing so, the proportion of feed energy converted to milk and meat is increased compared to than for animal maintenance. Also, emissions can be minimised by improving the quality of feed. This includes improving the quality of concentrate in the diet, replacing fibrous with starch concentrate, increasing the digestibility of forage, using more legumes rather than grass forage, more silage rather than hay and adding oilseeds to the diet.

However, if the methane is already produced in the form of manure, there are ways to change those methane into useful forms of energy. The manure management involves the capture and use of manure to pass them through anaerobic digestors. The methane that is extracted can then be used as a fuel for electric generators, heat and lighting due to their high energy content. This way, the methane is combusted to carbon dioxide and steam, where carbon dioxide is a less powerful greenhouse gas as compared to methane, reducing the effect of climate change.

References:

Key, N. and Tallard, G., 2011. Mitigating methane emissions from livestock: a global analysis of sectoral policies. Climatic Change, 112(2), pp.387-414.