Ag Alert April 3, 2024

Dairy farmers look for new methane emission solutions

ing to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Though the oldest operational digesters date back to 2004, most of the state’s digesters are new, with 120 built since 2021. Spurring much of the growth is California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard, an incentive program aimed at reducing use of fossil fuels. It allows biogas to earn credit for being a low-carbon fuel. At the federal level, the Renewable Fuel Standard program provides additional incentives. Reducing methane is crucial to slow-

ing global warming, Mitloehner said, be- cause if the potent greenhouse gas can be squelched aggressively, dairy production can reach a point of climate neutrality, or not add warming to the planet. Much of the buzz relates to new findings on how to cut enteric methane, which ac- counts for 51% to 67% of greenhouse gas emissions from dairies, according to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Feed additives have been in development

By Ching Lee With a construction boom of methane digester projects on California dairy farms in recent years, milk producers have begun to reduce a powerful greenhouse gas emit- ted by the manure coming from their cows. Now they must tackle the methane com- ing from the front end of their animals. Cow burps emit what’s known as enteric meth- ane, and the race to reduce it represents a new frontier for the dairy industry. The California Dairy Sustainability Summit in Davis last week shed light on some of the latest innovations in feed, genetics and vaccines showing promise. The annual conference highlights achieve- ments California dairy farms have made in environmental sustainability and some new planet-smart efforts. Various speakers stressed the impor- tance of public and private backing. Just as financial incentives have helped to get more methane digesters online, funding support is needed to drive progress in un- derstanding enteric emissions and how to curb them. California aims to cut livestock meth- ane emissions by 40%, or 7.2 million metric tons, below 2013 levels by 2030. Frank Mitloehner, an air quality special- ist at the University of California, Davis, said California dairies are already close to achieving half the state’s methane reduc- tion goals and will likely exceed them with reductions of 7.6 to 10.6 million metric tons of greenhouse gases, mostly methane, in coming years. A “sizable reduction” will come from at- trition, he said, as the state is expected to lose nearly 1% of its dairy cows annually. Most of the current methane reductions are through manure management, with dairy digesters accounting for more than half of the 7.2 million metric tons of reductions.

Digesters capture methane from cov- ered manure lagoons on dairies. The biogas is then cleaned and turned into renewable natural gas, which can be used to power vehicles and generate electricity and, more recently, hydrogen. As of August 2023, 161 dairy digesters were in operation in California, accord-

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April 3, 2024 Ag Alert 3