Technical guidelines to develop feed additives to reduce enteric methane
Flagship Goal: To accelerate the development and use of feed additives to reduce global enteric methane emissions from livestock.
There is an increasing need to significantly reduce global methane emissions, with enteric methane from livestock being one of the key targets. The use of feed additives has shown great potential as a strategy to reduce methane emissions from ruminant animals. However, despite extensive research over the past few decades, the suite of emerging feed additives to suppress enteric methane is limited and many constraints to their widespread usage have been identified (Hegarty et al., 2021).
This Flagship project will bring together a global network of experts to share knowledge and create detailed guidance to enable the livestock sector to collaboratively realise the vast potential that feed additives offer.
Anticipated Outcomes
- Development of new and more effective methane-suppressing feed additives.
- Improved academic and industry capability to develop feed additives, especially in countries with technical limitations.
- Further investigation of existing promising compounds.
- A reduction in time required to get feed additives to market and for their inclusion in GHG inventories.
- Technical guidelines and protocols to standardise experimental methods.
- Increased tools and criteria to facilitate the process of accreditation/market approval.
- Facilitated accounting for emissions reductions in GHG inventories at regional or national levels.
- Increased global collaboration.
- Creation and facilitation of a globally active network which is actively investigating and evaluating feed additives, that aims to maximise the potential that feed additives offer to mitigate GHG emissions.
- Involvement of regional and global organisations pursuing implementation of feed additives.
Opportunities to get involved
- Contact the Project Leaders if you would like to explore ways in which you can contribute to this project. Click on the names below to send an email:
David R. Yáñez-Ruiz (CSIC, ES), André Bannink (WUR, NL)
Key Partners
The foundation of the flagship is the Feed and Nutrition Network (FNN) of the GRA Livestock Research Group. Many of the FNN members have expertise in developing and testing feed additives and have published recent papers and technical documents related to ways of mitigating GHG emissions via feeding management.
Initial participating institutions: WUR (NL), CSIC (ES), Teagasc (IRE), AU (DK), Embrapa (BR), INIA (CL), UCD-UP (US), QUB-SRUC-UREAD (UK), AgResearch (NZ), INRAe (France), ILVO (BE), Agro (CO), LCL Network (Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, France and Spain).
Project status: Active