SUSTAINABILITY FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE April 2025 77 Recent Alliance research, using less sophisticated enclosures, found diet changes reduce methane emissions from grazing livestock by up to 15%. Researchers found improved pasture grasses that decrease nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from livestock urine by 10 times compared to conventional grasses. Scientists found improved grasses with meter-deep roots – more than three times deeper than many conventional grasses – with the potential to significantly increase soil carbon sequestration, restore degraded land, and mitigate climate shocks like drought and deluges. Powered by rapid advances in genotyping, phenotyping and artificial intelligence – and the Alliance’s access to a vast repository of understudied tropical forages – the work is set to accelerate. With the livestock industry under increased scrutiny for its outsized contribution to climate change, the timing is perfect. Crucially, the research taps into the livestock industry’s edge over others in the climate fight. “Agriculture systems, livestock in particular, have an advantage over other sectors in taking meaningful climate change action,” said Jacobo Arango, an environmental biologist and the Alliance’s forage team leader. “Better livestock management can both reduce greenhouse gas emissions and capture them. Other major emitters like transportation and energy can only reduce emissions.” The advantage matters. Rapidly reducing GHG emissions is urgent to curb climate change but it is not enough. Carbon capture is essential to keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, scientists concluded in the most recent major report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Agriculture is the world’s leading source of human-caused methane emissions, which have driven about 26% of warming since the Industrial Revolution. Livestock is responsible for about 12-19% of total methane emissions. N2O, the world’s “forgotten greenhouse gas,” is responsible for about 10% of climate warming; about 40% comes of which from livestock. Livestock, especially in tropical regions, drives deforestation, with devastating impacts on carbon storage, biodiversity, ecosystems, and the communities that depend on them. There are no simple solutions, but increasing the use of nature-friendly forages, such as improved grasses and legumes in tropical livestock systems and industrial feed production, could significantly cut GHG emissions. Some climate advocates call for people to reduce, or even end, the consumption of red meat and animal-sourced food. But there is a strong – and more realistically attainable – argument for transforming livestock systems to address their climate impacts. While decreased meat consumption in rich countries should be a public health priority, many developing nations increasingly consume meat. In poor countries, more meat on the table can efficiently fix pervasive nutrition deficiencies, particularly in Africa, where one in five people face hunger and suffer from related, often devastating health consequences. “Scaling up sustainable livestock systems is critical to the health of the planet and millions of peoThis illustration shows the deep root systems of Urochloa grasses (right) compared to conventional forage grasses. Urochloa is a nutritious, palatable and easily digestible forage for tropical livestock. Scientists at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture are researching its root system’s capacity for long-term sequestration and storage of soil carbon. Credit: Isabela Rivas/Alliance
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