ISSUE FOCUS FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE July 2024 33 emission reduction strategy. The China TAC evaluates various technologies, ingredients, additives, nutritional strategies, and digital solutions to measure and understand their individual and collective impact on methane reduction. In 2022, Cargill’s China TAC partnered with China Agricultural University (CAU) to develop the Carbon Reduction Project to support China’s carbon reduction goals. In partnership with Professor Shengli Li, the Chief Nutritionist of the China Dairy industry, Cargill’s China TAC and CAU teams evaluated the impact of multiple ingredients and additives on methane emissions. These ingredients and additives range from probiotics, phytogenics, to those that redirect hydrogen in the rumen, and seaweeds which can block the process of methanogenesis. After measuring and understanding each of these substance’s impact on methane reduction in the lab, the team validated their collective methane emission reduction ability on-farm, resulting in robust methodologies measuring individual feed intake and methane emission of cows. In the study, multiple solutions like low-carbon raw materials, technologies, ingredients or additives and feeding strategies were applied simultaneously to achieve and sustain carbon reductions on a test dairy farm operation. This ensured the investigation and validation of different technologies’ effects on cow performance, nutrient utilization, and methane production. For example, Cargill used C-Lock's GreenFeed machines to validate that SilvAir™, Cargill’s methane emission reduction solution, could reduce dairy cow methane emissions when incorporated into feed.1 The TAC, CAU and Professor Li will analyze and evaluate results to transform methane emission standards in China. This is particularly important, as the TAC and CAU will deliver: • The carbon emission standard for each ingredient in China – Understanding the base carbon emissions generated from each ingredient included in cattle diets to bolster Cargill’s global ingredient sourcing database, Cargill Nutrition System (CNS) – which provides real-time nutrient analysis of feed ingredients. • The China life cycle assessment (LCA) tools for dairy farms – In general, an LCA is a tool to assess potential environmental impacts throughout a dairy cow’s lifetime. CAU and Cargill will outline the tools necessary to assess dairy cattle’s environmental impact in China, including methane emissions. On March 8, 2024, nearly a year and half into the partnership, the China Agricultural University released a whitepaper titled “Whitepaper on China Dairy in Low Carbon,” with TAC as a co-author, contributing our insight and solutions. This includes solution efficacy in-vitro and in-vivo, the dairy methane emission reduction solution landscape, and more from the lab and the controlled dairy farm methane emission reduction study. FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND RESEARCH LAB AT CORNELL, NY, USA On the other side of the globe, Cornell’s Department of Animal Science, based in New York, USA, is now home to new, state-of-the-art animal respiration stalls that will enable research on livestock feed, health, and climate impacts. The new Cornell University Animal Respiration Chambers are individual climate-controlled rooms made of stainless steel with glass windows. Researchers will use the new facilities to understand how much greenhouse gas livestock produce and what management techniques could reduce those climate-warming gases. Among other things, researchers will test changes in livestock diets with the goal of optimizing nutrition for efficient milk and meat production, enhanced animal health, and minimum greenhouse gas production. With this technology, we’ll be able to more accurately answer questions about how livestock contribute to climate change and more effectively test strategies to reduce those impacts. The facility is the first of its kind to be installed in the U.S. and has been brought to life in partnership with Cargill. The work in China and the US is part of a wider global program of investment in sustainability and
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