The new initiative focuses on the development of sustainable solutions in animal agriculture, and part of that research happens in the climate-smart research pens, where hundreds of beef cattle are being studied.
“All of it comes out the front end of the animal, right? It's basically all cow burps. And so that's why our equipment just measures the front end of the animal because that's where the vast majority, 98% of the methane, comes from cattle," said Dr. Sara Place, an associate professor of feedlot systems at Colorado State University and AgNext.
“Methane is a tremendous opportunity. And I think what we get excited about is they're always going to produce methane, right? And we want them to, we want them to, that's a part of their natural digestive process. And that means that they're healthy," said Stackhouse-Lawson."But, if we could reduce methane some, that's an incredible lever to pull for this industry to get closer to climate neutrality and not having an impact on climate warming.
“For us, that most important thing is that baseline. And so, that's where we hope to influence in the next couple of years and have more information available for the cattle industry to better know and understand where they're at, and then from there they can improve," said Dr. Place.