The Truth About Methane and the Beef Industry
Shaye Koester 00:02
Hey, hey, it's Shaye Koester and I'm your host for the Casual Cattle Conversations podcast where we connect you to ranchers and beef industry enthusiast who can help you build a more profitable operation and improve your lifestyle. Are you looking for a community of ranchers who support and challenge you to be more profitable and proactive? Then sign up for our monthly RancherMind events. RancherMinds, are mastermind events for ranchers to come together once a month, and find solutions for their own and the industry's challenges. Stay connected by following @cattleconvos on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and never miss an episode or event update by signing up for our newsletter on casualcattleconversations.com/newsletter. If you get value out of this episode or any episode, drop a comment or tip me by using the link in the show notes. With that, let's see who our guest is today and connect you to a new resource to improve your own operation and lifestyle. Welcome back, folks or welcome if you are new to the show. Before we jump into this episode, I just want to let you know that I am booking speaking engagements for 2022. If you are interested in hearing from me about advocacy, entrepreneurship, podcasting in agriculture, whatever it may be, please either email me or DM me on social media and I'll gladly get a hold of you and I will gladly talk to you about that. But today we are going to visit with Dr. Frank Mitloehner at UC Davis to better understand the biogenic carbon cycle and what that means is beef producers, what that means for consumers, and how we can better communicate this science to stand behind our industry and share how we are using sustainable practices and, of course, have our environment in mind and are always looking to improve that. But first, let's hear how you can receive a premium for your calves.
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Shaye Koester 03:00
To get started, thank you for joining me today. It's great to have you on the show. And would you please just talk a little bit about what your role in the beef industry is?
Frank Mitloehner 03:10
Well, my name is Frank Mitloehner and I'm actually a professor and air quality specialist in the Department of Animal Science here at UC Davis. I've been here at Davis since 2002. I'm also the director of the CLEAR Center, which is a center and we do research on all things sustainability. Some people call it stewardship, others call it sustainability. But largely the same thing, really. And so I've done that on the case of the site for about two years. And the CLEAR center is half research. The other half is communication. Because we feel that if there's one thing that's really lacking in the beef industry and across the livestock sector, really, it is communication. I feel that there's so much urban myth in the narrative around livestock and climate, livestock in the environment, that it is my responsibility not just as a professor, but also as an extension specialist to get some outreach going, and we use a lot of social media platforms and so on to do that.
Shaye Koester 04:16
Well, awesome, so kind of touching on that communication side. What do you see as one of the more effective roles with beef producers reaching consumers and kind of clearing up those myths or even preventing those and being proactive in that standpoint?
Frank Mitloehner 04:32
So I think that there's one thing that really needs to change, it would be would be my wish, that farmers and ranchers speak more to the public, because they are being demonized by certain activist groups and portrayed as if there was something wrong as if they were inhumane to the animals but that as if they were polluting to the environment, as if they don't care, that is just simply not true. I have personally met, I don't know how many hundreds of farmers and ranchers in my career. I've worked on many operations, doing my research, I have communicated with farmers and ranchers. The problem is many of them don't want to talk. They just don't want to talk to the public. But the way I view it is those those days are over where you could just say, You know what I do what I do, and I'm doing well, but I just don't want to talk about it. If you don't talk about it, somebody else will. And you have to decide whether that somebody else who is holding the narrative around livestock and the environment, whether they do a good job, whether they do an accurate job, or whether they just try to take you down. So you have to decide, as a farmer, as a rancher, whether or not you want to infuse these discussions with some reality with some fact based, or whether you like to see it continue the word store.
Shaye Koester 06:01
Well, awesome. And I, I agree with that. We are completely in charge of telling our story, just like any other business or industry is in charge of telling theirs. So with that what I really wanted to visit with you today about is really that carbon neutrality discussion and the biogenic carbon cycle. I had the chance to listen to you at the Heuermann Lectures and that was amazing. So with that, would you please tell my audience what your role in the industry is a little more on the carbon neutrality discussion.
Frank Mitloehner 06:34
So I don't have a role in the industry other than I'm at a land grant university, and I'm doing research and extension. So I'm not in any way linked with the industry in any direct form. It's my role to to educate people who want to know about livestock's role on the environment in general, on our climate in particular. And so I'm a professor. I'm a scientist on the one hand, so I teach students and I do research. But the other role is to also get this research these results out, for example, to the beef industry. I also get it out to NGOs, non governmental organizations, get it out to agencies and so forth. So what is the narrative around livestock and climate? So it gets a little cumbersome, a little difficult to explain, but it's really important to introduce some nuance into this discussion. So there are different greenhouse gases. There's one that's called co2, carbon dioxide. There's another one called nitrous oxide, both of these co2 and nitrous oxide, they stay in the atmosphere for a long time. Once we emit those, they stay there for hundreds of 1000s of years. So this, these are long lived climate pollutants. Okay, so that's pretty problematic. Methane also has quite a punch to it. It is a greenhouse gas that is almost 30 times more potent in trapping heat from the sun than co2. It's so yes, it is a potent greenhouse gas, but it also has a short lifespan. And the reason for that is that there is a process in the atmosphere. We call it a atmospheric removal process that takes methane out. The scientific term is hydroxyl oxidation, and this is the process by which a certain molecule in the air destroys methane and that happens after approximately a decade. So that does not mean that methane is not a problem. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that we seek to further reduce but as you will hear in a minute, it is quite different compared to the others. You asked me for the biogenic carbon cycle. So this biogenic carbon cycle that I'm about to explain to you, and to your listeners is or explains where the carbon that ends up in methane where their carbon comes from, and where it goes. Okay, where comes from before it becomes methane and where it goes after methane is destroyed. That's the question of the biogenic carbon cycle. So the biogenic carbon cycle, first of all starts with with the question of where or what plants need to grow really what plants that eventually I eat my animals, what they need to grow. So what is it that feeds photosynthesis? In other words, so we know sunlight, we know it's water, and plants also need a form of carbon. That carbon they get from the atmosphere from the air in the form of co2. So the plants that gobble up atmospheric co2 and then the plants convert that co2 into carbohydrates, such as cellulose in the case of grasses, or starch, in the case of other fields, peanuts. So these carbohydrates are now in the above ground vegetation of these plants. And sooner or later, an animal comes along and eats that above ground vegetation. If it's a ruminant animals such as a cow, that carbohydrate is then digested in the rumen and the other stomach compartments. But in the rumen, there's methane formed and that methane is then belched out comes out the mouth and goes into the atmosphere. That's called enteric methane. That's what it's called. Some more methane also comes from the animals manure. So the question now is, is this methane that these animals produce, and that they put out into the air? Methane, by the way, CH4, is that C in the CH4 in the methane, is that new carbon added to the atmosphere or not new? And the answer to that is, it's not new, it's recycled carbon because it used to be in the atmosphere as co2 Carbon. Okay, it used to be co2 carbon that went into the plants. The animals ate the plants and now they're putting methane into the air. It's a different form of carbon, but it's still not new additional carbon it's just recycled carbon. So now this methane molecule stays in the air for about a decade, and then it meets there in the atmosphere, another molecule called a radical. That's what they called a hydroxyl radical. And this radical destroys methane, it takes about a decade for that methane, to no longer be methane, but be converted back into co2 and into water. So if you have a constant form of a constant source of methane, let's say, if you have a constant cattle herd and you have a constant source of methane, then the amount of methane produced by cows and the amount of methane destroyed through hydroxyl oxidation are roughly imbalance. Okay, same amount of methane that's produced is also destroyed through this hydroxyl oxidation. This has been known for a long time. This has been known for a long time why it never found its way in the public policy discussion, I don't know. But we have known this for a long time that methane is not just produced, but also destroyed. And we've known for a long time for the longest time, what leads to it that it's this hydroxyl oxidation. So if you have a constant source of methane, you're not adding new additional carbon to the atmosphere. But you are recycling existing carbon. Okay. Yes, it's true that it will stay in its form of methane for about a decade. And during that time, it's a potent greenhouse gas. But a constant herd of cattle does not add new additional carbon to the atmosphere. And most importantly, a constant source of methane does not add new additional warming to our planet. I repeat that a constant source of methane does not add new additional carbon and because of that, no new additional warming to our atmosphere. If we were to grow our livestock herds, like they do in parts of the developing world, then that would lead to additional warming. So for example, if you have a certain region, and you have a million cows in that region, and you've had a million cows for the last 30 years that reach and now you're growing that cow population to 1.5 million from one to 1.5 million, then that would have caused new additional methane because you increased your herd size by half a million. But if that herd was always a million, for the last decades, always a million, then that meant that we have not added new additional methane because the similar amount of what's produced is also destroyed. This is really, really important. But now comes what's really exciting to me. If we manage to reduce methane, if we managed to reduce methane through better feeding, feed additives through manure management through whatever means if we managed to reduce methane, whether that's belching or whether that's the menu of methane, then we can actually reduce warming. We can reduce warming, and that's the only gas that can do that. Okay. When you reduce the other greenhouse gases, you just warm less, I mean, the increase is less. But when you reduce methane, you actually reduce warming, you can induce cooling. And we in animal agriculture can do that. So how can we do that? Here in California, for example, our dairies went ahead and covered the lagoons where the manure is stored. As a result, gases no longer go into the air, they are trapped and converted into fuel that now runs vehicle fleets. This biogas to fuel conversion is highly incentivized by the state of California, and financially incentivized by the state of California, and has led to a situation where our dairy sector alone has reduced its methane by 25% so far. Now, you asked me about climate neutrality. So first of all, I do not talk about carbon neutrality, I talk about climate neutrality, and that's not the same. Climate neutrality means that you reduce methane enough to get this negative warming going and this cooling effect on the methane side. If you reduce enough methane, that reduction of methane can offset other greenhouse gases, such as nitrous oxide and co2 from a dairy or beef operation are to a point where that operation can reach climate neutrality a point by which they no longer add any additional warming. And this, to me is really exciting. And this is a point that will be reached within the foreseeable future, when we will pull so much methane out of the air by reducing that gas that we will counteract that we will offset nitrous oxide, co2. Reaching climate neutrality will be possible and we reach that if we reduce greenhouse gases by anywhere between half to 1%, half of one. So 0.5 to 1% annually. We reduce this greenhouse gases by that much anyone, then within the next decade or so will reach climate neutrality. So one last thing, I know this the longest answer on record, but it's so important and it's so nuanced. Okay. One last thing on this topic, why not carbon neutrality? You know, the fossil fuel industry, transportation, power production, and so they are going after carbon neutrality. Why is that? That is because their main greenhouse gas is not methane but is co2. And co2, once it's released, and in the atmosphere, stays there for 1000 years, not for 10. But for 1000 years, once we produce that gas, it never comes up, it stays there. And while it's in the air will always warm our planet. The fossil fuel sector needs to go to carbon neutrality, the livestock sector does not. We just need to reduce methane aggressively enough to reach a point by which we no longer contribute any warmer. And so that's the difference between climate neutrality and carbon neutrality.
Shaye Koester 18:05
Thank you for that. And I do appreciate you taking the extra time to go through and explain those differences in all segments that you talked about, explain the biogenic carbon cycle. But I really appreciate the difference in the carbon neutrality versus climate neutrality. Because I think as an industry, we hear all these new, you know, all these news articles, and those words are similar, but they all get thrown together. So it's important to understand the different meaning there. So yeah,
Frank Mitloehner 18:32
The NCBA has recently declared climate neutrality is their strategical goal for 2040.
Shaye Koester 18:40
Absolutely. Yes, I did read that. So with that, when you look at some of these changes on the beef industry side, because you've talked about how dairy has covered their lagoons and made changes there, what changes do you see in the beef industry coming up within these next 10 years, maybe even just five years?
Frank Mitloehner 19:02
Yeah, so first of all, on the dairy side, really briefly, what I described is something that has happened on several dozen areas in California. Okay, it's not the dairy industry that has done that overall. But it has happened here in California because we have a law that mandates a 40% reduction for zero to be achieved by the year 2030. That is what drove this development and it's not over, okay, our dairies are flocking into this technology of covering the lagoons. And they do that not just to reduce methane, they also do that to make money because they can get a lot of carbon credits that way. So now to your question on what's possible on the beef side. It is somewhat more difficult to reduce greenhouse gases on the beef side, particularly under grazing conditions. But most people don't appreciate,most people who have you know, Loud opinions but little background in the sphere, is that the vast majority of a beef animal's life is spent on pasture. So regardless whether it's grass finished or corn finished the vast majority of their life they spent on pasture and so we don't really have direct access to them day in day out. And that is what makes it more difficult. It's relatively easy, relatively easy to reduce methane and other greenhouse gases from feedlot cattle, because we feed them every day. We can now for example, use feed additives that we know reduce enteric methane. Here at UC Davis, we've done a couple of dozen studies on finding what kind of additives have which effect on methane, but also on animal performance, all the way to carcass characteristics. And we have found that there are some additives that reduce greenhouse gases, particularly methane, that anywhere between 10 to 50%. Most of these feed additives are at an experimental stage. But in my opinion, they will be commercially available in about five years. And just so you know, there are companies, large companies such as Nestle and Starbucks, and others who help farmers and ranchers buying these additives, they pay for them. And they're not doing that because they are nice and friendly companies, they're doing that because they want to reduce their own carbon footprint. They're doing this in in order to reduce their supply chains, carbon footprint, that's why they're helping farmers to do that. So it's not that farmers have to shoulder this themselves, okay. But there is now a real interest even in retailers and fast food chains and so on to help farmers reduce emissions because this is an angle to become a solution, even a larger solution than just reducing your own greenhouse gases. If you go far enough, you even trade. You can trade with let's say the Chevron's and BPs and, and Shells in the world and sell off your carbon credits if you reduce greenhouse gases, particularly methane. So what else is possible? So feed additives are one way of reducing our climate impact. Another one is the use of let's say feedlot manure as compost. And compost doesn't just mean you take the manure and stockpile it. But compost means you take them in and you blend it with some carbon rich material, and you make real compost from it. If you were to just dust the surface of your ranch with that compost, you would put those ranch soils on steroids. What I mean by that is, you would drastically improve soil carbon capture, it's called soil carbon sequestration. And let me explain really quickly what that means because producers hear that all the time. So we oftentimes are told it's very important that we have healthy soils, right. But what does that mean? That means that you help those. So if you graze a certain part of ranch, if you graze it, then the grazing itself the act of grazing stimulates more aggressive plant growth by the plant. If the plant is frequently grazed down, then that's like our hair, we give it a frequent haircut, it grows faster. So the forages are that way too. If you graze them, then they grow faster. And every time a plant grows, it takes carbon out of the air during photosynthesis and then only a portion stays in the above ground vegetation that's eaten by animals. The majority of that carbon comes from the airs atmospheric carbon goes into the roots of the plants. And then it goes from the roots into the soil where it's stored by soil microbes. They trap that carbon in the ground and it is believed that our soils store up to 1/3 of all human caused greenhouse gases. A third. But that only happens, this process called soil carbon sequestration, only happens if we leave our soils relatively undisturbed. If we tell them then the carbon that was previously stored in the ground can escape again. Okay, so row crops don't do the same as rangelands, rangelands, will enhance soil carbon sequestration. Row cropping will also take on carbon from from the air but when we tilled that land, it will escape. And so new practices around low till or no till, will greatly help us to keep the carbon that was in the air in the ground. So that's a second very important avenue. Okay, to enhance soil carbon sequestration. last but not least, there is a lot of work on developing vaccines against methane. New Zealand has been working on a vaccine for methane for beef cattle for a long time. So that would pretty much be a shot the animals get. Then that animal would produce less methane. And that vaccine would be like all the other vaccines that you apply to beef cattle, and that could work for grazing animals.
Shaye Koester 25:50
Awesome. Well, thank you for explaining that and going into depth on that. So I guess a next question would be How is methane measured?
Frank Mitloehner 26:02
How was methane measured? You mean other research conditions or in the field?
Shaye Koester 26:06
So like, in the field, I mean, you could go through some research examples as well. But you know, how is it confirmed that, you know, cattle are producing this much, like,
Frank Mitloehner 26:19
Okay, so I'm here at the University of California in Davis and I have all different kinds of facilities that allow me to either measure the method directly from the rumen of the animal. I can take rumen fluid out of out of a cow and then see how these methane forming microbes in the rumen fluid generate methane. I can manipulate those microbes by different by using different feed additives to reduce that methane. I can also take a cow and put her head into what's called a head chamber. So this animal can still eat and drink and stand and lie. But it cannot walk around. And I measure all the methane this animal belches out. And we have other pieces of equipment that allow to measure methane every time. The cow goes to visit them to get a little, a little reward a little kibble that's dispensed, okay. And every time she sticks her head into that is called a green feed. Every time she sticks her head in there and methane is measured. Then I have built really large structures, they are the size of the house, people call them the bovine bubbles. So now imagine a really tall environmental chamber, 100 foot long, 40 foot wide, 30 foot tall, and a whole group of beef cattle. 14 beef cattle in in each one of those bubbles. They are housed under pretty industry standard conditions. Except for the fact that they are totally enclosed. Everything else is dirt floor, the way would be in a feedlot in a commercial feedlot. I have eight of those bovine bubbles. And so I can measure ways to manipulating the way we manage feedlots and see what the impacts are on emissions. Last but not least we can measure methane also using planes or using satellites or both. So we can measure methane in in so many different ways. And we have really figured it out. Okay. So now the question is, how can your listener know how much methane they produce and that's much more difficult. They can't really measure it at home on the ranch on their farm. They can't really measure that in any practical way. But Methane is a direct result of two things. Dry matter intake, so how much feed these animals eat and roughage content of the diet. So the amount of roughage in the diet is a very important predictor of methane because the methane forming microbes, they thrive on roughage. They can't deal with concentrates. They lead roughage, so the more roughages in the diet, the more methane they will produce. So if you were to know how much your animals and how much roughage is in the diet, we could predict their methane. Now, in general terms, we have a pretty good idea as to what the range is for methane produced by beef animals. And what agencies would do is they would just look at your animal numbers, and they would look at how you manage them. Then they would predict the methane that comes off the operation.
Shaye Koester 29:43
Awesome. Thank you for going through that now. Looking at the United States beef industry. How do we compare to beef industries and other countries? As far as climate neutrality
Frank Mitloehner 29:59
I think It is fair to say that the United States beef industry is the world leader. In this field, in the United States, we are producing 18%, one eight, 18% of all global beef here in United States, I repeat that we are producing 18%, one eight of all beef produced of all of beef eaten in the world. 18% of that is produced in the United States by only 6% of the global beef herd. So we only have 6% of the world's beef animals in this country. But with that small number of 6%, we are satisfying 18% of the world's beef. This is pretty sensational. This is pretty sensational. We are the envy of the world in this respect. And I think we are one of the best kept secrets in that way. Because I don't know how often I hear people bullying the beef industry, particularly in the United States and telling the world that we are an example of being among the worst, the opposite is true. But as I said, initially, we have a serious issue, getting the word out, and therefore it is among the best kept secrets. I hope we can change that.
Shaye Koester 31:26
Absolutely, there's a lot we need to work on as far as sharing what we do, why we do it, and the impact we're actually making when it comes to caring for our resources and feeding the world. So with that, you've covered quite a few of the other questions I've been meaning to ask you. So we're kind of going to, I guess, leading into that. We talked about it at the beginning a little bit. But, you know, what other ways can we express and explain, you know, the biogenic carbon cycle, the beef industry's role in climate neutrality. You talked about, you know, farmers and ranchers going out there and speaking with the public more, do you think that's going to be the only effective method? Or what other methods do you think we need to do to get our point across and explain our story?
Frank Mitloehner 32:16
So to me, what's really paramount is that the beef industry is, is very clear about the fact that you care, okay, that you care about things such as the quality of the land, the water quality on your land, the air, the climate impacts the welfare of your animals, I mean, deeply care about the welfare of the animals, it's not just because this is what is the the financial background of what you do. I mean, if you don't have good welfare, you will definitely feel it in your pocketbook. But that's not why you take care of your animals. You know, if anybody has a question as to whether or not be producers care for the animals, how about they go visit one? How about they do that for a change instead of sitting behind the desk all day and slamming people. I have seen with my own eyes so so many examples of people getting up in the middle of the night of people spending countless hours in order to help, let's say a pregnant cow to give birth and helping them through dystocia. You know, helping people help animals. The whole sustainability picture, okay, this, this picture that we often call stewardship, of people caring for their land, caring for the animals caring for the people who work with them, caring for the product they produce. That is not told, okay, that story is simply not told. People assume that everybody knows it's not true. They don't know and there are destructors out there who tried to tell the public that all of what we are talking about what we are talking about here Shaye, is nothing but greenwashing. Okay, they are out there saying the people like myself and others are merely greenwashing, the role of livestock on climate. I absolutely resemble that comment. Okay, I help the industry in improving their sustainability. And I think that this is a very noble cause and am I talking and working with industry? Of course I am. Would the industry listen to me if I weren't working with them. It is almost ridiculous to assume that somebody like myself, wouldn't or shouldn't. And because people say that be too close. Well, I guess I guess, we have to live with the fact that if you were sick that you would have to be very close to a doctor helping you. Because guess what, that's what doctors do. Okay? And guess what I do for a living? I help people to improve their sustainability. And if you don't like it, I don't mean your listeners, I just mean those distractors. If you don't like that, then tough, tough luck.
Shaye Koester 35:27
Absolutely. So when we do share that story, and start expressing that, what are the main points we need to get across in this climate neutrality discussion?
Frank Mitloehner 35:39
So first of all, you should never say, you know, methane is short lived. It's part of the biogenic carbon cycle, we shouldn't care about that. That's not true. Okay. What is true is that methane is a potent greenhouse gas, it is the fast and furious because it has a good punch to it. But thank God, it has a short lifespan, if we managed to further reduce our emissions, we can be part of the climate solution. Okay, that is one take home message, we can be part of the climate solution, because once we are at climate neutrality, and we go on further by further reducing methane, then we are pulling more carbon from the air than we put in. And that means we can trade we can offset our emissions from with other sectors, we can sell our credits to other sectors like the fossil fuel sector. This is not some creative accounting, this is real, okay, this is real, we can be a solution provider. To me, the whole discussion around livestock and climate is much more of an opportunity than it is a challenge. The industry needs to understand that while they are worried about this very topic, they first of all have to understand what it means. The CLEAR center that I'm directing here at UC Davis, if you go to clear.ucdavis.edu has a webpage. And on its landing page is an article on this very topic of climate neutrality and how US beef and dairy will reach that. I encourage you to go visit that webpage and I encourage you to share it with the extension folks in the respective states. I encourage you to really read it, you might have to read it twice, or maybe three times. But I tell you, this topic is so important that everybody should try to understand what it really means and how this can be a real opportunity for you. So what I'm not at all saying is, you know, there's a way of just changing the narrative by using fancy verbiage. But what I'm saying is there is a real fact based way of us being an important solution provider. Let's go that route.
Shaye Koester 37:57
Well, awesome. Thank you very much for going into depth and explaining everything today. Those are all the questions I have for you. But if you have anything else you'd like to add or share with my listeners, you're more than welcome to do that at this time.
Frank Mitloehner 38:12
Well, I'm, I'm really impressed with how professional and articulate and so on this show is. I hope that you have good success and great reach and great feedback. It is very important that people like you share information, like the one we share today with the audience. And if there's any opportunity in the future to continue educating your listeners on these topics. I'd be glad to do that.
Shaye Koester 38:39
And that's a wrap on that one, folks. I hope you found a lot of value in this episode, and be sure to let me know your thoughts. With that I do have one more resource for you to look into that places more emphasis on the females in your herd. So let's hear how we can do a little better job of that.
Red Angus Association of America 38:57
The cow. No wonder they call her the “foundation female” – on her shoulders rests the genetic basis of any cow herd, so it’s critical she measures up to your expectations for stayability and fertility. How can you create more high-quality females while eliminating the guesswork and up-front costs that accompany heifer development? The Red Angus Association of America has launched Red Choice – a program designed to aid producers in developing the highest quality heifers through genomic testing, AI technology and veterinarian partnerships. Heifers that meet the criteria are more likely to stay in the herd, propagate the best genetics and make a positive impact on your bottom line. Learn more about Red Choice at redangus.org.
