NEWS 84 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE February 2024 Three carbon projects initiated in 2021 and 2022 have issued nearly $3 million in carbon-asset payments to U.S. dairy farmers who used Agolin® Ruminant to create verified emissions reductions. A verified emissions reduction is a carbon asset that can be used as an offset or within a value chain. It represents 1 tonne of equivalent greenhouse gas emissions that are either avoided or removed from the atmosphere through an intervention that has been independently verified as part of a carbon reduction project. Agolin Ruminant is a proprietary blend of essential oils that improves milk production and feed efficiency in beef and dairy cattle. In 2018, it became the first feed additive certified by the Carbon Trust for methane reduction in ruminants. Today, Agolin Ruminant is included in the diets of more than 2 million dairy cows worldwide, and leading carbon methodology owners Verra and Gold Standard recognise it in their international climate protection project registries. Concord Agriculture Partners has chosen Agolin Ruminant to create a new carbon inset project that guarantees that participating dairy producers will receive an industry-leading 85% of the gross value of the carbon asset. Carbon inset projects focus on taking steps to avoid emissions, whereas carbon offset projects are designed to reduce or remove greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere to compensate for emissions produced elsewhere. By focusing on the purchase of insets and using global standards, Concord’s project delivers increased market confidence and drives greater value for dairy producers. Read more>> Dairy farmers get carbon-asset payments for emissions reductions New study: Changing animal feed reduces consumption of natural resources A study published on the cover of Nature Food, the result of a collaboration between Politecnico di Milano and the University of Milan, highlights how the increased use of by-products in the feed sector from a circular perspective can lead to significant savings in the use of land and water resources and, thus, more sustainable agri-food systems. Underlying the work signed by Camilla Govoni and Maria Cristina Rulli (Politecnico di Milano), Paolo D'Odorico (University of California at Berkeley), and Luciano Pinotti (University of Milan), there is a thorough analysis of the competition for natural resources between animal and human food production and a search for strategies to reduce both this competition and the unsustainable use of natural resources that can result from it. The study shows that an 11-16% substitution of energy-intensive crops currently used as animal feed (e.g., cereals) with agricultural by-products would save approximately between 15.4 and 27.8 million hectares of soil, between 3 and 19.6 km3 and between 74.2 and 137.8 km3 of irrigation and rainwater. This saving of natural resources is an appropriate strategy for reducing the unsustainable use of natural resources both locally and globally, i.e., through virtual trade in land and water. Read more>>
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTUxNjkxNQ==