By Gareth Vaughan
If things go well in four key areas where work is underway to tackle methane emissions from farm animals they could "make a big hole" in New Zealand's agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, according to Mark Aspin, consortium manager at the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Consortium.
The Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Consortium is a public-private partnership that has been working for 20 years to reduce agriculture greenhouse gas emissions. Speaking in interest.co.nz's Of Interest podcast, Aspin discusses the lessons and progress along the way.
With the agriculture sector contributing half NZ's emissions, according to the Ministry for the Environment's greenhouse gas inventory, and methane 44% largely due to the digestive process of ruminant animals such as cows and sheep, Aspin talks in detail about the four key methane mitigation tools being worked on.
These are; methane inhibitors, genetic selection to breed low-emission cows and sheep, low-emission feed and forage, and a vaccine that could stimulate the animal's immune system to generate antibodies in saliva that target proteins on methane-producing microbes, or methanogens, in the rumen area of the stomach restricting their growth and ability to produce methane.
The Government has a target of reducing biogenic methane emissions from 2017 levels by between 24% and 47% by 2050. Aspin says the four key areas of work have the potential to make a big dent in NZ agriculture's methane emissions.
"In a perfect world yes, we could probably make a big hole in the agricultural emissions if we could get them all to work," says Aspin.
He acknowledges that the vaccine is "proving very tough," but continues to believe it could work.
In the podcast he also talks about the challenges of being a livestock grazing nation, intellectual property, regulatory requirements, what's going on overseas, NZ's international climate change commitments, and the position of NZ and its agriculture sector in the context of global greenhouse gas emissions.
You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.
33 Comments
List doesn't include the easiest one for a lot dairy farms. Cut cow numbers. While generally there has been vast improvement in the productivity of cows over the years, there are may properties that would benefit greatly from a drop in cow numbers and an increase in basic management.
For instance I recently enquired of a local job, 500 cows on 260ha. The herd had never done more than 300kgs per cow and this year will only do 2/3 of that. It's good land and this is way below where it should be. They are not the only ones struggling and lifting that bottom 25% into the 21st century would make an immediate and effective difference.
Avg cow/ha in NZ is around 2.8. In the example you give the stocking rate is 1.92approx - well below the average. Sure your numbers are right, redcows? 260ha producing 150,000kgsms (at 300kgs/cow) suggests that either there is more to it, or else your idea of 'good land' is different to most farmers.
Lord Martin Rees, back about the time I started commenting here, stated that we needed to go "with existing technologies". Now he witters on about needing new ones; and this sounds like that too. Our obligation to future others - our children and theirs - is to leave nothing for them to fix. That is a very clear threshold.
That, in turn, means not relying on yet-to-be-invented/proven/scaled technologies. Sooner or later that approach has to fail; stats just beat you and when you're rolling the existential dice, that is unacceptable.
In that light, reduction is the only valid option for these folk, until they've proven something. We've given too many people too much rope for too long; time's up.
There are no net emissions. "agriculture sector contributing half NZ's emissions" but what Gareth fails to mention it also absorbs all of its emissions as part of the carbon cycle. Redcows suggestion for the bottom 25% of farmers is all it needs. Go focus on industries that produce net emissions and let farmers get on with producing export receipts.
"Even more strikingly, if an individual herd’s methane emissions are falling by one third of one percent per year (that’s 7/2100, so the two terms cancel out) – which the farmers I met seemed confident could be achieved with a combination of good husbandry, feed additives and perhaps vaccines in the longer term – then that herd is no longer adding to global warming. "
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/ideasroom/a-climate-neutral-nz-yes-its-possi…
"Adaptive multi-paddock grazing can sequester large amounts of soil C.
Emissions from the grazing system were offset completely by soil C sequestration."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X17310338
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-021-00226-2#MOESM1
We really need to stop it with this 'net zero emissions' nonsense. Imagine explaining at the international negotiating table that we don't need to reduce methane emissions because we are only pumping out enough to keep our enormous cloud of methane the same size? Do you not think people might reasonably suggest that we need that huge cloud of warming gas to, errrm, reduce?!?
It is not nonsense - just an inconvenient fact for the chicken little brigade. Typical "pumping out" rhetoric - it is a carbon cycle not Wellington's sewerage system. Just make the "international negotiating table" aware of the fact we have the lowest carbon footprint red meat/dairy in the world. Defeatist attitudes like yours will have us importing chinese milk fed by Californian alfalfa.
As for your "huge cloud of warming" get a grip - NZ farmers drained 500,000 ha of swamp that was actually emitting methane. NZ methane is a pimple on on the butt of the global carbon cycle - if you think killing a few cows is going the change the weather back to the Little Ice Age I've got a bridge to sell you.
" China imported 1.63 million MT of U.S. alfalfa during 2022. That was 71,083 MT (4.4%) above its updated 2021 total. The country now accounts for over 57% of all alfalfa hay exports leaving U.S. ports."
I comment on lots of things I don't know enough about - but this isn't one of them.
There is a big difference between a carbon cycle in which carbon is emitted as CO2 and then sequestered, and a carbon cycle where the carbon is (unnecessarily) attached to 4 hydrogen atoms and then released into the atmosphere as a super-strength greenhouse gas with a lifespan of a few decades.
I am not sure how closely you track climate and trade negotiations, but suffice to say that there are lots of countries that claim to be the lowest carbon emitting meat / dairy farmers. And, our clearance of huge areas of carbon sink forests for farming is the reason why, on some measures, NZ has made the highest per capita contribution to climate change of any country.
I won't comment on your China whataboutism other than to ask whether we should relax about people being murdered here... what with so many more people being killed in big countries. I also don't know where you got the idea that I was advocating 'killing cows' - but given I set you off on a little ice age rant, I assume that you are prone to getting a little confused.
The biogenic methane from the NZ herd is being destroyed at the same rate as it is being emitted - even reduced from 1990 levels. It is very boring - so spare me the "super-strength" hyperbole. Prof. Myles Allen "...the fact that this formula is vastly more accurate than the traditional accounting rule is indisputable".
Perhaps climate negotiations could focus on industries that add to the runaway warming hypothesis - else it looks like a gravy train and not at all related to the hand wringers climate emergency (TM).
NZ red meat/dairy does have a comparatively very low carbon footprint - hence we survive without farm subsidies. There are a number of Ag Research LCA studies on this you could use to educate yourself with. There is already a critical financial incentive for NZ farming to be low carbon - else be blown out of the water by our heavily subsidised trading partners.
It is not China whataboutism. The question is where is NZ going to get it's meat/dairy from once the industry here is destroyed? China was merely an example of the carbon footprint of some of our trading partners you plan to import our future ag products from.
profile,
I have clashed with you a few times over climate change, but here I'm with you. I have no farming connections other than as consumer and taxpayer. I am all for the industry using technologies to improve performance, whether that is reducing emissions, reducing the use of fertiliser or PKE and coming down hard on those who refuse to up their game.
However, none of the critics explain how we pay our way-maintain our current lifestyle- if we take the axe to farming. I might exempt PDK from this as he is quite clear that we can't maintain our current way of life, but nobody else does so.
We are constantly told by journalists like Rod Oram that we should look to the likes of Nestle- a company with an appalling track record. It is an inconvenient truth that our emissions represent no more than a rounding error globally and the atmosphere is agnostic as to where emissions come from.The additional 43 coal mines and 18 blast furnaces China plans to build will add something like 1.50% to their total emissions. At over 210mts, that will greatly exceed NZ's total current emissions of CO2e.
I have no doubt that climate change is all too real-the evidence for it is pretty overwhelming- but NZ should act pragmatically, or just accept that our standard of living must reduce and quickly. How many will vote for that I wonder?
Interesting article from Judith Curry on outcomes of the IPCC dropping implausible RCP8.5 scenarios that the MSM loves to headline with. Time forget mitigation and focus on resilience - with the added bonus of also covering our earthquake and volcanic risk.
"The most important finding of the past five years is that the extreme emissions scenarios RCP8.5 and SSP5-8.5, commonly referred to as “business-as-usual” scenarios, are now widely recognised as implausible. These extreme scenarios have been dropped by the UN Conference of the Parties to the UN Climate Agreement.
...The extreme emissions scenarios are associated with alarming projections of 4-5C of warming by 2100. The most recent Conference of the Parties (COP27) is working from a baseline temperature projection based on a medium emissions scenario of 2.5C by 2100. Since 1.2C of warming has already occurred from the baseline period in the late 19th century, the amount of warming projected for the remainder of the 21st century under the medium emissions scenario is only about one-third of the warming projections under the extreme emissions scenario.
It is therefore difficult to overstate the importance of the shift in expectations for future extreme weather events and sea level rise that is associated with rejection of the extreme emissions scenarios. Rejecting these extreme scenarios has rendered obsolete much of the climate impacts literature and assessments of the past decade, that have focused on these scenarios. In particular, the extreme emissions scenario dominates the impacts that are featured prominently in the new Synthesis Report.
...Not only has the IPCC increasingly taken on a stance of explicit political advocacy, but it is misleading policymakers by its continued emphasis on extreme climate outcomes driven by the implausible extreme emissions scenarios. With its explicit political advocacy, combined with misleading information, the IPCC risks losing its privileged position in international policy debates."
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/uns-climate-panic-is-more-p…
Interest.co - I am reminded of the HM comment yesterday, re the two comments above.
In physics terms, farming is the process - inefficient when you see it this way - of turning fossil energy calories into food calories. Some say 10 of FF to one of food, but I can count more like 30:1 by the time we factor in the manufacture of the oil filter on the John Deere. We'd be far better off working out how to eat the oil; it would be more energy efficient.
But that also tells us that the industry is responsible for fossil fuel use, and depletion. No amount of hiding (or obfuscating) can change that fact. And the bigger question is: what next? Because the fossil energy that this form of food-production is entirely dependent on, is half-gone. Unfortunately, we used that half to grow our numbers eight-fold (a total stupidity) and there is no planB for the way back down.
But let's keep pretending tomorrow will be exactly like today....
But by focusing on bio methane as we do in Aotearoa it allows the majority to point the finger elsewhere. If we were to concentrate on cutting transport emissions the effect on agriculture would be automatic and very effective because modern ag is totally dependant on FF.
I guess it's all about ineffectively beating around the bush.
It seems that feedback analysis model the IPCC is using is flawed. Their model converts CO2 sensitivity of ~1.2 degrees to ~4 degrees of equilibrium doubled CO2 sensitivity. Correcting for the IPCCs error, increases in the current levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses have almost no effect on the earth's temperature. Seems like an important detail.
Techno-optimism at its finest. All four of these approaches are expensive, time-consuming dead ends, yet so tempting to put one's faith in, because they promise us solutions which don't involve changing the way we live.
Anyway, what happened to lab-grown meat? That was supposed to solve all our farming methane emissions in one fell swoop, and has been Coming Soon™ to supermarket shelves near you for about the past 10 years...
Think about it (Monbiot didn't, for sure): the same energy concept applies. Artificial meat is food energy; the question is where the energy came from?
(That might be hard for economics-types to understand, but energy cannot be created, and at every alteration, it dilutes/dissipates in the direction of low-grade heat - unusable to do work).
So the question (unasked by any media, thus far) is: What energy-source will drive artificial food, if any? Electricity? Tapped out. Fossil energy? over-committed and dwindling. Any of the bio-options? Um, isn't that what they're trying to displace?
Sigh
I agree with a lot of what you say, but I really don't understand your 'electricity is tapped out' point. We are using a fraction of the kinetic and solar energy freely available on the planet - and there is potential for huge efficiency savings. A transition to a lower-energy, near zero fossil fuel economy is possible. Not saying it will be easy given the wilful ignorance of people that think the future involves eating 100kg of meat each a year and driving a V8.
It's easy to think that things like sun and wind are "free energy", but they're not. There's huge amounts of cost and complexity involved in collecting, converting, storing, transporting, and using them. It makes more sense (and is more accurate) when you stop thinking about the sun and the wind as sources of electricity, and start thinking about solar panels and turbines as the sources instead. The energy for building, running, and maintaining these systems has to come from somewhere, and that's energy which won't be available for powering our EVs or zero-carbon BBQs.
Good points (and from pdk). I guess my read of the literature is that the transition we need to make is possible, but, yes, there will need to be sacrifices. The idea that we will be burning tonnes of jet fuel flying away on cheap holidays, or continuing to use vast swathes of land to graze animals and grow crops to feed them just seems totally fanciful.
Exactly. I'm not saying renewable energy sources are a waste of time, they're not, and they're likely to play an important role in our future energy production. But that future will not look like today. We can't generate as much net energy from renewables as we can from fossil fuels, we are going to have to consume less of it.
It's more than that - the other resources (NNR's) that energy is used to extract, are also moot; copper for example. Where it once took the removal of 10 tons of 'overburden' to obtain one ton of copper, it now requires the removal of 400 tons. And that is being done with oil, which is slipping in net-energy terms the same way (it is taking more and more of the energy, to get the energy: less surplus for useful work). It's a double whammy.
Atop that, is the level of entropy (it's worth knowing about). Fossil energy so outranks renewable:
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph240/klein1/docs/rickover.pdf
that it's not in the same league. Those of us who championed it (I bought my first panel in 1980, have lived off-grid for 20 years and perhaps more) know that it is marginal, that it is very unlikely that solar energy will ever be harvested compactly enough to build solar panels, for instance. The geological compact
ion we inherited was unique. Even nuclear only does electricity, with low-grade heat a dubious spinoff.
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/ (go down to 'animated series', go for the one on the right; The Great Simplification.
go well
So the question (unasked by any media, thus far) is: What energy-source will drive artificial food, if any? Electricity? Tapped out. Fossil energy? over-committed and dwindling. Any of the bio-options? Um, isn't that what they're trying to displace?
Excess C energy in our atmosphere?
I could not agree more with that. It has been taken over by the same free inflated low interest money that is fueling the housing property market. Ie more interested in farming inflation than producing food. Needs the same solution. Los of tax deductability of interest.
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