December 14, 2023
Methane is a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide: It鈥檚 responsible for . A single cow can produce up to , or 160 kilograms per year, mostly through eructation (that is, belching). Multiply that by the planet鈥檚 1.4 billion cattle, and it might be a burp, not a butterfly wing, that causes a hurricane on the other side of the world.
Dairy foods continue to have an important role in feeding the world. It鈥檚 not the cattle鈥檚 fault that, by mass, (including us). Their digestive systems do what they can with the food we allot them. Given all this, what can researchers do to mitigate bovine belching? They can focus on cattle digestive systems. A cow鈥檚 methane emissions are influenced by its gut microbiome, and . Breeding cattle who simply emit less methane than their peers might be ideal鈥攂ut this research is in its early stages.
How about focusing on cattle feed? have found that adding the methane inhibitor 3-nitrooxypropanol (3-NOP) to a cow鈥檚 diet reduces their methane output by up to 30%, with no apparent negative impact on their health or milk production. But these studies are also relatively recent, and 3-NOP warrants further research before it can be made commercially available at scale.
鈥淭hat will help, and potentially be a much faster improvement,鈥� says Matthew Shaffer. 鈥淕enetics is a long-term game. It takes time for genetics to work through the system. But the benefits of genetics are permanent and cumulative.鈥�
Shaffer is the CEO of DataGene, an initiative of Dairy Australia that鈥檚 driving genetic gain and herd improvement in the country鈥檚 dairy industry. that track desirable genetic traits among Australia鈥檚 1.4 million cattle: A Balanced Performance Index, for traits that affect their lifetime contribution to the farm business; a Health Weighted Index, which fast tracks genetic gain for fertility, feed efficiency, and disease resistance; and a Sustainability Index, which fast tracks genetic gain for reduced methane emissions intensity.
Thinking in these terms鈥攏ot gross emissions, but emissions intensity鈥攊s another way to tackle the methane problem. Say you have two cows of the same weight, diet, and gross emissions, but every day one produces 20 liters of milk and the other 30 liters. The higher-producing cow dilutes their methane output across more production throughout their lifetime. 鈥淚f you need to supply 100 liters of milk, you get it with less methane,鈥� Shaffer explains. 鈥淏ut with increased production comes other consequences, on fertility and other traits.鈥� For example, a longer-lived cow also has a reduced emissions intensity, because the first two years before she can begin producing milk constitutes a smaller percentage of her life. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 why emissions intensity is balanced within our index: so we don鈥檛 cause other issues by chasing only production.鈥�
Genomic sequencing has enabled dairy farmers to make breeding decisions much faster, with greater accuracy, based on genomic breeding values. No longer do they have to wait to see how productive, fertile, or hardy a bull鈥檚 progeny are before they decide whether to use that bull for further breeding: These genomic breeding values can be calculated for animals as soon as they鈥檙e born. This reduces the time between generations and, according to one estimate, .
Australian dairy farmers looking to order top-quality bull semen can use to rank animals based on these indices, to fit their particular needs. They can also sequence their female animals simply by taking a small tissue sample, usually from an ear. They send the sample to a genomic service provider, who genotypes it and returns a genomic breeding value for that cow. Equipped with these values, farmers can make more informed decisions about which animals to keep in their herd.
鈥淲e couldn鈥檛 do what we do without DairyBio, who provide a lot of the research and work closely with VR真人彩票 to add SNPs to their systems,鈥� Shaffer says, referring to the genetic markers that this genotyping looks for.
DataGene鈥檚 next big project is aggregating vast amounts of new sequencing data into their Central Data Repository (CDR). 鈥淲e鈥檙e connecting the CDR to various equipment manufacturers to bring new data we鈥檝e never seen before,鈥� Shaffer says. 鈥淪ome of it will be milking machine information from robots; some will be information from companies we don鈥檛 currently have access to. It鈥檚 really important to expand the CDR, which will enable us to produce better tools and analytics for farmers.鈥�
It鈥檚 not always the case that a company CEO starts out on the 鈥渟hop room floor鈥� in the same industry. But Shaffer grew up milking cows by hand on his grandmother鈥檚 farm; his first paying job was as a milker on a larger farm. 鈥淪o I鈥檝e got milk in my veins, as it were,鈥� he jokes. But that means this work holds great personal meaning to him. 鈥淲hat gets me up every morning is the desire to enable farmers to make better decisions and breed better animals, and the corollary impact that has on the environment and on people鈥檚 health.鈥�
With the strength of knowledge from all these tools, breeding a more sustainable cow is not just a good idea鈥攊t鈥檚 a mooovement.
