Welcome to The Dairy Mail

by Fidelis Zvomuya, recently in Bonn, Germany

Chewing her cud on a recent sunny morning, Maureen, a 635 kg Holstein, paused to do her part for global warming at a dairy farm in Germany.

Maureen, age five, and the 144 other dairy cows at the Riswick dairy farm, a model experimental farm in the small town of Kleve, located 460 km southwest of Berlin and a few kilometres from the border with the Netherlands, are at the heart of an experiment to determine whether a change in diet will help them belch less methane.

The agricultural department of the University of Bonn is in charge of running it.

As of the last reading in mid-May, the methane output at Riswick’s herd had dropped 18%. Meanwhile, milk production has held its own.

This year, Riswick will become the first German research centre to study methane emissions from cattle, which are a major contributor of greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

“They are healthier,” says Wolfgang Buescher, professor of animal sciences at the University of Bonn and director of the Riswick project. “Their coats are shinier, and their breath is sweet.”

According to climatologists, sweetening cow breath is a matter of some urgency.

Cows have digestive bacteria in their stomachs that cause them to belch methane, the second-most significant heat-trapping emission associated with global warming after carbon dioxide. ­Although it is far less common in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, it has 20 times the heat-trapping ability of carbon dioxide.

Farming for the future
However, at the recent Bonn climate talks, experts agreed that farming is going to have to change dramatically in the 21st century not only to meet the demands of feeding increasing numbers of people, but because current cultivation methods are not sustainable.

In reference to the general agricultural sector, Dennis Garrity, director of the International Council for Research in Agro-Forestry (ICRAF) in Nairobi says while many experts point fingers at automobiles as the major problem behind greenhouse gas emissions, they would be well advised to spread some of the blame on contemporary industrial farming methods.

“The agriculturists and their farming systems are emitting more carbon,” he says. “All the trucks, all the cars don’t measure up to what agriculture is contributing to carbon loss to the atmosphere. We have to turn that around.”

This was in reference to the use of unsustainable agricultural activities, the use of farm machinery, fertilisers, and pesticides.

Garrity and his colleagues focus on developing sustainable agricultural systems for small-scale farmers. The council’s plans involve farming systems that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and provide both income and nourishment to more people.

A flaw in the report
A 2006 report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation attributed 18% of the greenhouse gases produced each year to livestock.

A scientist at the University of California at Davis pointed out a flaw in the FAO 2006 report Livestock’s Long Shadow. Frank Mitloehner, who is also an air-quality specialist who places cows in air­tight tent enclosures and measures what he calls their ‘eruptions’, says the average cow expel­s 90 to 180 kg of methane per year.

“Smarter animal farming, not less farming, equals less heat. Producing less meat and milk will only mean more hunger in poor countries,” ­Mitloehner explains. He objects to the UN’s statement that livestock account for more greenhouse gases than transportation, when there is no generally accepted global breakdown of gas production by the ­industrial sector.

Livestock’s Long Shadow produced its numbers for the livestock sector by adding up emissions from farm to table, including the gases ­produced by growing animal feed; animals’ digestive emissions; and processing meat and milk into foods he notes.

“But its transportation analysis similarly did not add up emissions from well to wheel; instead, it considered only emissions from fossil fuels burned while driving,” he says.

It’s all in the fodder
But at Riswick farm the focus to reducing the methane emissions since January, have seen their grain feed adjusted to include more plants such as alfalfa and flaxseed substances that mimic the spring grasses that the animals evolved long ago to feed on. Buescher says in Germany, the digestive processes of four million dairy cows in 2007 generated about 450 000 tons of methane, or 2,1% of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

On the Riswick farm, 144 cows will live in strictly controlled conditions. “We are going to be exact in weighing and analysing the feed and in using photo-analysis to measure their emissions,” Buescher says.

The emissions will be channelled to three different chambers: one for methane, one for ammonia and one for carbon dioxide.

Buescher explains that in previous experiments the variations in cattle feed helped to reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly. “For example, cows that eat maize instead of grass emit less methane. Other ideas applied in laboratory conditions have included adding fish oil and garlic oil to cattle feed.

“We estimate that by changing the diet we can reduce emissions by up to 40%,” Buescher says. “Apart from the plans we have here, our cows will be raised under otherwise normal conditions. We aren’t going to use gas masks to filter the belches, nor are we going to attach a vacuum to the cow’s behind,” he says jokingly.
This research will be rolled out to other parts of the world.

Climate concern
Also, environmental researchers predict Southern Africa will be hit heavily by climate change over the next 70 years. Agricultural production is projected to be halved – a development that will threaten the livelihoods of farmers in a region where 70% of the population are smallholder farmers.

“We will be seriously affected by climate change in Southern Africa. Agriculture and biodiversity will experience a particularly negative impact,” Dr Constansia Musvoto, researcher at South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) said.

Temperatures will increase by up to 6°C, while rainfall will drop by as much as 40% in some parts of the region, Musvoto said.

As a result, the region will experience more and longer droughts, increased crop failures and have less fields and pastures owing to water shortages. In addition, natural disasters will be more intense, while pest outbreaks for both crops and livestock will become more frequent.

Musvoto also predicts that there will be more diseases in Southern Africa. “Owing to rising temperatures, malaria will spread more widely, which will negatively affect the availability of farm labour,” she explains.

Farmers have already felt the first effects of changing climatic conditions. In 2006, the production of maize, the main staple in the region, fell short by 2,18 million tonnes owing to droughts.

Climate change
According to one of the top agencies for anima­l health, climate change is widening viral disease among farm animals, expanding the spread of some microbes that are also a known risk to human­s.

The World Animal Health Organisation (OIE) says a survey of 126 of its member states found that 71% were “extremely concerned” about the expected impact of climate change on animal disease.

Fifty-eight per cent say they had already identified at least one disease that was new to their territory or had returned to their territory, and that they associated with climate change.

The three most mentioned diseases were bluetongue, spread among sheep by biting gnats; Rift Valley fever, a livestock disease that can also be transmitted by people handling infected meat; and the West Nile virus, which is transmitted by mosquitoes from infected birds to both animals and humans.

“More and more countries are indicating that climate change has been responsible for at least one emerging or re-emerging disease occurring on their territory,” OIE director general, Bernard Vallat, says.

“This is a reality we cannot ignore. We must help veterinary services throughout the world to equip themselves with systems that comply with international standards of good governance to deal with this problem.”

Opsomming
Daar is tans groot omstredenheid oor die mate waartoe boerderypraktyke, en spesifiek melkboerdery bydra tot aardverwarming. ’n Proefplaas in Duitsland het egter besluit om te eksperimenteer om metaangasuitlate van koeie te verminder deur hul dieet aan te pas. Volgens prof Wolfgang Buescher van die Universiteit van Bonn en direkteur van die projek, kan hulle op dié wyse metaangemissies met tot 40% verminder.