Methane-reducing feed additives: Who will pay for them?
Plus, new cattle emissions research facility opens at Colorado State University
A recent article from Bloomberg highlights the challenges facing cattle feeders and the adoption of methane-reducing feed additives. The article states DSM’s Bovaer product, which is approved for cattle feeding in some European countries, costs 30 cents per dairy cow per day to feed. The cost per ton of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas it prohibits from being produced is $100. Current carbon offsets can be purchased for $5 to $10 per ton. So, the article claims, companies looking to offset their emissions aren’t interested in employing the technology.
The article questions whether food companies may have to be willing to pay dairy and beef farmers to feed the product in order to be able to meet the greenhouse gas commitments they have already made. The article states Bovaer is only being fed to about 100,000 cattle worldwide.
Additionally, more than 150,000 cows in the U.S. are being fed a different enteric methane inhibitor Agolin, which reduces enteric methane by 8.4 percent compared to 30 percent for Bovaer.
My conversations at the recently held Precision Dairy Conference confirm this same conundrum about methane-reducing feed additives. There isn’t enough research yet to be definitive about these additives’ affect on milk production (hopefully at least no effect and not a negative impact). Plus, they are costly to feed. So the question remains: Who’s going to pay for use at the farm level to create the benefit for those upstream?
Read more about the current state of methane-reducing feed additives here.
OnFarm Solutions (Sponsor)
Teatwand has been partnering with dealers and farmers for over 15 years, providing award-winning teat spraying technology that reduces labor costs and protects cows from mastitis. Learn more here.
Merck claims pole position in activity monitoring in New Zealand
A recent article indicates global giant Merck Animal Health has more than 15 percent of New Zealand’s dairy cows fitted with its activity monitors. A company representative claims the company works with more than 750 farms and is the “market leader” in activity monitoring technology among Kiwi dairy farmers.
The same representative says activity monitoring penetration will “only continue to grow, as more farmers realize the benefits” of activity monitoring.
Read more about the adoption of activity monitoring in New Zealand.
New cattle emissions research facility opens at Colorado State
Colorado State is now home to the largest greenhouse gas emissions research facility for beef animals in the U.S. The site recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Read more about the facility’s efforts to improve sustainability in animal agriculture here.
Washington State dairy achieves landmark verification for novel methane avoidance technique
Skyridge Farms in Sunnyside, Washington, processes manure liquids on-site using Livestock Water Recycling’s First Wave System. The system diverts solids from storage lagoons and instead composts them for use as high-value natural fertilizer. Meanwhile, the phosphorus-free nutrient liquids produced by the system are applied to crops during the growing season.
Livestock Water Recycling’s system captures 288 data points during manure processing. To date the company has captured and processed more than 2 million manure data points through its system installations. It feeds this data into its machine-learning automation. Its system has recently been certified as capable of avoiding the formation of greenhouse gases.
“We are immensely proud of the successful verification of carbon credits for Skyridge Farms and the pivotal role that our technology played in this achievement,” says Karen Schuett, Co-Founder and CEO of LWR. “This milestone demonstrates the effectiveness of our technology in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, avoiding the creation of methane, and optimizing resource utilization.”
Over the course of 900-plus research days, the LWR First Wave system at Skyrdige achieved a reduction of 20,692 tons of CO2-equivalent emissions while processing 300 million gallons of manure.
“We were thrilled to be able to work with Skyridge Farms to bring this innovative technology to the voluntary credit market,” stated Nick Facciola, Director of Carbon Projects at 3Degrees. “We are excited about the opportunities this technology presents to implement decarbonization programs within the supply chains of milk production.”
Read more about Livestock Water Recycling’s greenhouse gas avoidance technology here.
Progressive Dairy Podcast (Sponsor)
The Progressive Dairy Podcast is published every other week and frequently includes guests discussing technology. Click here to subscribe on your favorite channel.
What an innovator does
Big 12 Conference Commissioner Brett Yormark is known for being a sports marketing innovator. For example, he’s setting up college game locations in Mexico and having his conference’s coaches wear broadcast mics during game days. Neither have been done for college games before.
Recently one athletic director described what it’s like to work with such an innovator. I liked the descriptors used. I think this analogy from the sports world translates over to livestock owners and operators who want to be forward-thinking when it comes to cow tech. These are the kinds of actions they must do too.
“He’s active. … He’ll come and challenge you like, ‘this is what I want to do.’ The first couple of times he did that, the ADs were like, ‘Woah, this has never been done before.’ We’ve adjusted and adapted and changed some things. … He’s been good about, when the vast majority of the room says, ‘not the right time,’ he’ll drop it. But he’ll push it a long way down the road. He doesn’t give up easily. He’s got us all on our toes.”
See the quote in context here.
Dairy profit projections from ZISK
Projected profitability for the next 12 months for two dairy herd sizes HAVE IMPROVED BUT REMAIN NEGATIVE for some large-herd dairies in recent profit projections from ZISK.
ZISK is a profit-projection smartphone app that tracks individual dairy farm profitability based on current CME board prices. Projections for a 1,000-cow dairy producing an average of 80 pounds of milk per cow and a 2,500-cow dairy producing an average of 85 pounds of milk per cow are provided.
12-month dairy farm profit projections (as of July 7, 2023):
1,000-cow dairy = -$15,800 (UP about $64,200 since the end of June)
2,500-cow dairy = $631,000 (UP about $154,000 since the end of June)