Waikato company Ruminant BioTech is developing technology that it hopes will cut ruminant methane emissions by as much as 70%.
It consists of a bolus capable of reducing methane over a six-month period, and the company aims to bring it to market by 2025.
Ruminant BioTech chief executive George Reeves said the bolus has the potential to provide every dairy, sheep and beef farmer in New Zealand with an effective, easy, “set and forget” methane reduction solution that is both highly effective and practical for grass-fed animal farming operations.
Reeves sees the bolus as a tool farmers will be able to use to reduce their emissions, rather than a silver bullet.
Companies producing options for farmers to reduce their emissions are coming from different angles, which gives farmers plenty of options depending on their farming system and animals.
“Our approach has been to address what does a farmer in a New Zealand farming system actually need and that’s something where you can stick the bolus in and walk away and not worry about it, knowing that it’s going to reduce emissions,” Reeves said.
“I kind of call it a ‘set and forget’ solution. It doesn’t need a lot of interaction once you have applied it.”
Using the bolus will remove the need for a feed additive,” he said.
“Other methane mitigation products in development are primarily feed additives. However, because New Zealand farms are grass-fed systems, feed additives are not a very practical solution.
“The aim is for our bolus solution to be suited to every ruminant animal, on every New Zealand farm. There is no other solution currently available anywhere in the world like it. It’s a real game-changer.”
Most of the initial research has been focused on cattle because they are larger and produce more emissions.
The target reduction was 70%, but over the past 18 months Ruminant BioTech has developed a proof of concept that reduces 90% of methane over almost three months.
That proof of concept is a prototype that has been tested on animals in a managed and measured study carried out in research laboratories at AgResearch’s Grasslands facility in Palmerston North.
“It’s the same efficacy as seaweed except that its 24/7 in the rumen knocking down methane,” Reeves said.
In lay terms, the bolus inhibits methanogen – a form of stomach bacteria – that live in the rumen and its enzyme pathway, stopping this stomach bacteria from producing methane.
“It prevents the methanogen from converting other substances into methane,” Reeves said.
Hypothetically on a spring-calving dairy farm, Reeves sees the bolus been administered to a cow just prior to calving when the animal is about to enter the peak milk spring flush period of the season.
On a sheep and beef farm the ideal time could be when a farmer has the animals yarded for an annual task such as weaning.
Ultimately, the bolus’s usage could come down to the farmer’s goal – whether they are aiming for compliance or wanting to create a high-value product that could obtain a market premium, he said.
“The frequency of application will be determined by the objectives of the farmer and what they are trying to do.”
The prototype has also not caused any residue within the animal’s milk or meat, meaning there is no cause for concern, he said.
The government is backing the research, committing $7.8 million to Ruminant BioTech, which the company will match.
That funding will go into further research & development and forge partnerships in the primary sector to further develop the prototype. Reeves hopes the bolus will be ready for large-scale farm trials by 2024. Those trials will examine the most effective time to use the bolus and its impact on productivity.
It is too early to know how much the bolus as a commercial product will cost, but Reeves is confident it will be a cost-effective solution.
He is equally confident that the product will be ready by 2025 and in the process establish a business that could potentially generate export revenue as a solution for farmers around the world.
“This isn’t a New Zealand problem, it’s a global problem. We get focused on New Zealand but we’re 10 million cattle in one billion,” he said.
