Methane emissions research ‘hopelessly inadequate’ in Australia

A stark warning about Australia’s failure to find solutions for reducing emissions beyond intensive livestock or dairy production has been issued.

Cattle grazing near Cowra, NSW.

AUSTRALIA’s research efforts into reducing emissions from its export-focused livestock industries were currently “hopelessly inadequate” and risked leaving extensive grazing producers without the tools they would need to meet future customer demands.

And, potentially, without a profitable market.

This is according to one of Australia’s top ag scientists.

The University of Melbourne’s professor of sustainable agriculture Richard Eckard said the “horse has bolted” and Australia’s federal government had practically “ground to a halt” significant research investments, particularly on reducing methane emissions from extensive grazing systems.

He said offsetting and soil carbon storage could “only store so much carbon”, so more research was needed to reduce the bigger impact of methane.

Prof Eckhard said Australia needed to stop “wasting time” talking about government-set emissions targets.

Instead it should commit to more research to allow producers to be “profitable in the new environment” where consumer preferences pushed companies into demanding lower emissions, he said.

Prof Eckhard told a Crawford Fund forum last week that of the 100 largest economies in the world 69 were companies, not countries, and many were setting emission reduction targets for agricultural supply chains to match the Paris Agreement.

Meanwhile, just last week, global meat juggernaut JBS set a net-zero target on greenhouse gas emissions by for 2040 for its international operations.

It is the first major international meat processing company to make the move.

JBS is the largest red meat processor in the world

Prof Eckhard said it was likely that “government targets might not be as influential as supply chain targets in driving change in agricultural GHG emissions”.

“Options to reduce livestock methane emissions show great potential but are more suited to intensive livestock production systems,” he said.

“The real challenge is to develop mitigation options for the more extensive grazing

industries in Australia and in poorer countries that are low cost, low intervention and intergenerational - early life programming of livestock is one of these emerging options.”

He said central Africa was currently more attractive for specialist researchers than Australia.

And while Meat & Livestock Australia’s carbon neutral by 2030 goal was praiseworthy and aspirational, he said the R&D body did not have enough funds to do all the work needed.

A spokesman for the federal Department of Agriculture said Australia was participating in international efforts to reduce greenhouse gases in agriculture by chairing the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases.

The spokesman said Australian agriculture outperformed many exporting countries in emissions per unit of production, with wheat and grass-fed beef farms below the global median.

He said last year the federal government “provided $78.5 million in matched R&D funding to MLA”.

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