CSU scientists delve into cattle guts to cut emissions

Fight against greenhouse gases enters new dimension

BY RAE SOLOMON KUNC

In many ways, the research pens at Colorado State University are what you’d nd on your standard cattle feedlot. ere are cows, of course, plenty of mud, and the inevitable odor of livestock.

But this feedlot, at CSU’s agricultural research and education center in Fort Collins, doubles as a scienti c laboratory. It’s where researchers in the AgNext program — a specialized research group for sustainability in animal agriculture — are learning about the greenhouse gases cows produce as they stand around digesting food.

e feedlot is tricked out with millions of dollars of equipment that allow scientists to track everything that goes into each cow, along with some of what comes out.

Specialized feed bins use radiofrequency identi cation (RFID) technology to track every ounce of corn consumed on a per cow basis. Another piece of equipment called the GreenFeed machine analyzes the gases cattle exhale. It’s a bit like a high-tech gumball machine, dispensing tasty cow treats — alfalfa pellets — on a schedule, and at the beckoning of a smartphone app operated by researchers.

On a chilly afternoon in March, Colorado State University Animal Sciences Professor Sara Place demonstrated the technology, tapping a button on her phone. A highpitched electronic chime sounded and the alfalfa pellets dropped into an opening at cow level, catching the attention of a big-eyed angus who moseyed up for a bite to eat.

“He’s got his head stuck in the machine and he’s chowing down a little bit of a snack,” Place explained.

Despite common misconceptions about the perils of bovine atu- lence, most methane comes out of the cow’s front end in the form of enteric emissions. at means each time an cow gets a snack from the

GreenFeed machine, Place has an opportunity to get information.

“ e air gets pulled from around the animal’s face, and whatever they’re respiring out goes directly into the machine,” Place said. “We can get real time methane emissions data from that.”

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that has a warming power 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the rst 20 years of emission. e animal agriculture industry, which includes all operations that raise animals for meat or dairy, produces more methane than any other human activity in the U.S.

Climate experts say we’re running out of time to prevent climate catastrophe. To avoid the worst of it, experts say it is imperative to cut greenhouse gas emissions dramatically before 2030. Environmental groups have ambitious goals to reduce agricultural methane emissions by 30% globally by the year

But when it comes to emissions from the livestock sector, the science is still just emerging, and it’s not yet clear if the cuts will come in

Place hopes to change that with her work in the research pens.

“We want to nd solutions that can help mitigate those emissions to cut the climate impact of beef,”

A tricky proposition

Reducing the climate footprint of beef is a complex problem. According to Kim Stackhouse Lawson, director of CSU’s AgNext program, producing methane is just part of

“ ey’re biologically supposed to make methane,” she said. e gases are the byproduct of a complex fermentation process that happens inside a cow’s largest stomach, called the rumen. Changing that equation involves tinkering with the complex microbiological ecosystem inside a living animal’s stomach, which means there’s still a lot we don’t know.

For instance, there is still no experimental data on baseline emissions from the livestock industry. “ e data is not granular enough,” Stackhouse Lawson said. e best understanding of the cattle emissions picture comes from the Environmental Protection Agency’s greenhouse gas emissions inventory, which derives its data from a model that uses emissions factors - essentially multipliers from a chart, so the data is based on equations rather than direct measurements from the animals themselves.

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