Reducing GHG's - benefiting the farmer and the environment

Despite being based at AbacusBio in Dunedin for the past 7 weeks, one paper that I found particularly interesting at last week’s IFMA congress was one by an AbacusBio consultant! Research work by Cameron Ludemann has looked into reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from sheep while maintaining farm profit progress.

Many New Zealand sheep farmers are currently selecting breeding stock based on selection traits, which are used to produce estimated breeding values (EBV’s). These predominantly focus on improving flock profitability. A new selection tool has been designed by AbacusBio, whereby farmers can select for animals that produce fewer greenhouse gases, yet are still capable of enhancing farm profitability.

Different methods were considered to create a selection index for greenhouse gas emissions, based on reducing GHG’s either on a per ewe basis or on a per kg carcass weight produced basis. Calculating GHG emissions on a per kg carcass weight sold basis was chosen following a workshop with key leaders and farmers in the New Zealand sheep industry, as it aligns more towards efficiency and farm profit along with reducing GHG emissions than any other method considered. It is crucial to have a farmer accepted system in place, as farmers won’t select to reduce GHG emissions if too much farm profitability is compromised. To highlight this, focusing on changing the relative weighting of traits that focus solely on reducing GHG emissions per unit of product can lead to 0.8% annual reductions in GHG emissions per unit of product, but it would result in a reduction in farm profitability of NZ$0.27 per breeding ewe per year. Most farmers won’t select animals based on reducing GHG emissions per unit of product  by itself as they are farm profit driven. Therefore the project involved farmers with the development of the new ‘Environment index’ to have an acceptable trade-off between reducing GHG per unit of carcase weight sold and farm profitability progress. Following consultation with farmers an ‘Environment index' was agreed upon which produced an ‘acceptable’ trade-off. Genetic progress modelling results showed that selection of animals using the ‘Environment  index' provided 80% of the potential improvement in reducing GHG emissions per unit of carcase weight, while maintaining 99.8% of the potential farm profit progress. These results are extremely promising, as it shows that farmers can continue to select animals to improve genetic progress and increase farm profitability, while reducing GHG emissions per unit of product simultaneously.

Having seen many sheep farms in New Zealand and participating in several discussion groups since being here, it is obvious that a greater emphasis is made here on profit traits that in the UK, where many breeders are still focused on type traits or appearence. Considering this, it is likely that there is greater potential to reduce GHG emissions per unit of product in flocks in the UK than in New Zealand by adopting profit selection indexes.

Research work is already underway at IBERS, Aberystwyth University looking at reducing GHG emissions in sheep and cattle from feeding high sugar grasses, and I have seen plenty of farmers in New Zealand using AberDart and AberMagic, just as many livestock farmers do back home in the UK. Surely there is huge potential to combine genetic improvements in livestock breeding, and the way in which we feed livestock to greatly improve the carbon footprint of livestock in New Zealand and elsewhere in the World.

Comments

[Louis Vuitton Store]

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[Belstaff For Sale]

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