Progress made on 'gas' research

By LIAM DANN

Farmers are gearing up for a fight with the Government about who will pay for research into animal methane emissions, but a voluntary industry group already doing the work is quietly reviewing its first year.

The Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium has the backing of five key industry groups - Fonterra, Meat NZ, Wrightson, DeerResearch and AgResearch.

With just $1.6 million - $800,000 from the industry, matched equally by the Government - the consortium had started research into likely solutions to the problem of methane emissions, said its chairman, Mark Leslie.

In order to find the answers, work was first being done to understand more about the process of rumination - the way animals digested grass, he said.

A possible short-term solution was the development of a drench or "methane vaccine" to lower emissions.

A study into its effectiveness had been set up by the consortium in Australia.

But it was important also to look at long-term solutions due to the practicalities of administering a drench daily - particularly for sheep farmers, said Leslie.

These included a study into genotypes to see if some animals naturally produced less gas than others. If that proved to be the case, the nation's breeding programmes could be altered to produce less gassy stock.

The other long-term option was to look at the kinds of feeds that produced less gas.

Leslie said it might be possible to convert pastures to a more digestible type of grass.

The biggest difficulty the consortium faced in the first year was finding scientists with the right skills for the studies. AgResearch had managed to recruit two microbiologists with specialist skills from Britain which was a great success, he said.

The recruitment difficulties prompted Leslie to question the logic of Government plans to raise a further $8.4 million with a farmer levy. There was a limit to how much research could be done in the field, he said, and a risk of doubling up if another agency got involved.