Researchers from Ireland’s agriculture agency Teagasc, alongside University College Dublin (UCD) and the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation, believe they have made strides towards identifying, and ultimately breeding for, low-methane-emitting beef cattle in a bid to improve the environmental sustainability of the meat.
Until now, the genetic selection of low-methane-emitting livestock has been limited by the relationship of methane output and feed intake.
“In general, on the same plane of nutrition, animals that consume more feed tend to produce more methane on a daily basis,” researcher Paul Smith said.
“This relationship has so far made it difficult to breed low-methane-emitting animals without negatively impacting feed intake, which is a key driver of animal productivity, particularly in forage-based production systems.”
But the team has recently developed a novel approach to quantifying emissions in beef cattle which is capable of disentangling the...