Dr. Frank Mitloehner, Director of the UC Davis CLEAR Center, recently joined host Jamie Mackay on New Zealand’s popular radio show “The Country,” a daily program that dives into the nation’s largest industry, agriculture.

Dr. Mitloehner was in New Zealand to meet with farmers, policy makers, private businesses and members of parliament to discuss tools to mitigate methane and sustainability in animal agriculture.

As a world-renowned expert on livestock, methane and climate, Dr. Mitloehner is in high demand, globally for his clear, science-based communication. And because methane remains a key focus in New Zealand’s agricultural discussions, he offers valuable perspectives and insights.

The show began by the two discussing Dr. Mitloehner’s take on ruminant animals and Mackay asking about ruminant animals possibly having a net cooling effect on the planet.

“Well, it’s complicated,” Dr. Mitloehner began by saying. “What really can help reduce warming is for us to reduce methane and that is something we can do through feeding, breeding, manure management and that really gets us into a position where we can be part of the climate solution if we handle this gas right.”

Mackay then went onto say, “Well I’m no scientist—far from it. But my take on it, is that these ruminants are the innocent victims here—the real problem around climate change and global warming comes from man burning fossil fuel.”

Dr. Mitloehner cautioned Mackay to not think of the problem as being that black and white. “It’s not quite that easy,” he stated. “Yes the burning of fossil fuel makes up the lion’s share of the greenhouse gas emissions that lead to climate change but ruminant livestock also play a part because our four legged friends are producing that gas in their digestive track and its belched out and some of it comes from their manure and once it’s in the air it lingers for about a decade. But the good thing about it is that if we mitigate it, we can reduce that gas and we do so in a meaningful way, then we can reduce methane concentration in the air and that can reduce warming –and that’s something our industry can do that other industries cannot. And while fossil fuel is the number one culprit, livestock play a role as well and so can we as the ones having custody over those animals.”

The two then spoke about the biogenic carbon cycle which is a process where carbon is recycled within living organisms and their environment. Plants capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and convert it into carbohydrates, which are then used as fuel and building blocks. This carbon is also stored in plant tissues and soil. When animals consume plants, they incorporate the carbon into their bodies, and it is eventually released back into the atmosphere through respiration or decomposition. 

Mackay inquired about the biogenic carbon cycle and if that neutralizes everything at the end of the day.

“No, it doesn’t,” Dr. Mitloehner said. “It’s true that the carbon that becomes methane originates in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is taken on by plants that our animals eat and that carbon is converted into carbohydrates and it’s made into methane and then another 10 years later goes back to carbon dioxide, so that’s the cycle that you’re talking about. And while we are not adding new additional carbon to a constant herd of cattle, while that methane is in the form of methane, it is a significant warming agent and that’s why we need to mitigate it.”

The conversation then shifted to strategies for reducing methane emissions—could the answer lie in feed additives, vaccines, or both?

“What’s the holy grail here, Dr. Frank?’ Mackay asked.

Dr. Mitloehner explained that the “holy grail” of climate solutions depends on regional context. Although New Zealand and California share similar climate goals for animal agriculture, the environments in which livestock are raised differ significantly between the two, influencing the best path forward.

“I live in California where we have more intensity housed animals, manure management is number one, and particularly the use anaerobic digesters. In addition, feed additives are also important,” Dr. Mitloehner said. “But here in New Zealand, with your conditions, where you have more grazing animals, it might come down more to breeding. There is now knowledge of methane being a heritable trait so it’s passed on from the mom to the offspring and we can breed accordingly. So breeding is one aspect the other is vaccine, a third one might be a bolus, that slowly releases an active ingredient that reduces methane. And then there are also changes to our forage management that can help reduce this gas.  There is not one silver bullet but there are multiple ways we can reduce methane, if we do it to the order of 10%, or 15%, or even 20%, then we can be a significant part of a climate solution.”

The conversation then turned to how California is working to meet its methane reduction goals—by partnering with farmers through incentives rather than penalties. Dr. Mitloehner often describes this as the “carrot, not stick” approach, which is incentivizing the adoption of new technologies on farms to help in achieving climate targets.

“The carrot works, and the stick does not, and what I mean by that is the stick is where a government uses rules and regulations or fines and taxes to force farmers to do a certain thing. That has been tried all over the world with very limited success. In California, we use the opposite approach. We use the carrot, which means we financially incentivize the reduction of methane and that has been shown to work. We are asked to reduce 40% of our methane from the livestock and dairies sector in California and by using this voluntary, incentive-based approach, it has led our farmers to already by now achieve a very large portion of these reductions. So we need to reduce seven million metric tons, and we have already reduced five million metric tons and that’s a huge accomplishment and that is the result of the government working with, instead of against our farmers.”

Mackay added that “I’m of the option that the market will always determine farmer behavior or business behavior and if there is a premium for low emission products than farmers will be into it.” 

“The market is important and that’s one of the reasons the ‘carrot approach’ in California has been so successful,” said Dr. Mitloehner. “Because there is a carbon market there and if there were incentives to reduce methane than farmers would readily respond to it,” Dr Mitloehner said. “If there were penalties let’s say than their response would be much less, and changes would be much harder to achieve.”

Mitloehner strongly believes that agriculture, when guided by science and innovation, holds immense potential to mitigate climate change and he implored listeners to look at agriculture as a solution and not a problem in regard to reducing greenhouse gases.

“I think that we need to work with our farming sector to make it the best it can be,” Mitloehner said. “We need to work with our farmers to give tools into their hands that help them optimize not just productivity, but also their environmental performance. Because we do have societal goals. Society is asking for us to work with them.”

Listen to the entire interview here.