Reducing livestock methane with technology

An Australian Agritech company, DIT AgTech, is setting its sights on reducing methane emissions from livestock. The potent greenhouse gas is proving controversial at the moment due to Australia’s refusal to make substantial efforts to reduce the gas’s presence in the atmosphere, much to the consternation of nations around the world — but also to farmers in Australia.

While reducing the number of livestock is one method of reducing the gas, DIT AgTech is developing technology to reduce emissions through the use of food additives that when ingested by farmed animals can reduce emissions substantially without the need for animal culling or scaling back of farms.

The technology is currently undergoing scientific testing by the Central Queensland University. It uses methane reduction additives that are carefully dosed to livestock using DIT AgTech’s proprietary water dosing technology, which is designed to ensure that the additives are delivered efficiently and accurately. Using this technology could also see a farm issued with an Australian carbon credit unit.

“The additives to reduce methane are proven tested and ready to deploy to reduce methane in livestock,” said Mark Peart, CEO of DIT AgTech. “The issue has always been how to deliver these additives at scale. We are building a technology platform that can deliver these additives at scale to 100s of millions of livestock via water to meet the 2050 targets.

“Agriculture is the last traditional industry but if we don’t disrupt it with tech, especially for our vast and remote pastoral operations and in increasingly harsher weather conditions, we stand to lose our capability as a leading food producer and the idea of farming as a productive or attractive industry sector for anyone.”

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Jonatan Rundblad