Manitoba scientist studying cows and methane

by Matthew Wright

A scientist at the University of Manitoba is being recognized for a significant accomplishment involving the measuring of belches billowing from bovines.
Dr. Ermias Kebreab, an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair at the University of Manitoba’s Department of Animal Science, has been collecting and analyzing gases emitting from cows by placing them, one at a time, into a Plexiglas feeding compartment.

Once the front end of the animal is secured, a hooded collar is wrapped around its neck which traps the gases. An attached hose guides the air from the compartment to a machine where the oxygen, carbon dioxide and methane levels are analyzed.
Methane is produced as a by-product during the digestion of feed by micro-organisms. Contrary to popular misconceptions, 98 per cent of gases emitted from a cow escape from its front, rather than back end. This enteric fermentation accounts for up to 30 per cent of all agriculture GHG emissions in Canada.
Kebreab has used this equipment to measure methane emissions from cattle and what makes his research really novel is that he was able to develop mathematical models which can predict methane emissions in feedlot cattle. The models that he has developed have been used by the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States as they are recognized as superior to those models used internationally by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
“The IPCC models do not take into account the kind of feed,” Kebreab says, “If you follow the IPCC’s rules, the only way to reduce methane emissions from cattle is to reduce animal numbers. We’re saying take a look at different feeding systems instead.”
The other unique feature of the work being conducted at the University of Manitoba is its ability to examine greenhouse gases using a whole-farm approach. Although Kebreab and others have demonstrated that grasses are harder for the microbes in the animal’s rumen to digest, causing more consumed energy to be lost to the atmosphere as methane, it does not provide information about other greenhouse gas in a whole farm system, including the ability of forage land to “soak up” or “sequester” carbon, serving as a sink rather than a source of greenhouse gases.
In fact, it is the development of models which will allow them to look at all aspects of greenhouse gas production and determine which on-farm management strategies have greater economic and environmental sustainability.
Dr. Kim Ominski, an associate professor in the Animal Science at the University of Manitoba, is excited about the findings that Kebreab brings to the table.
“We look at all the factors involved in a whole farm approach,” she said adding that Kebreab’s work will enable us to look at the many essential parts of the whole picture.