RESEARCH COLLABORATION TO EXPLORE POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS TO INHIBIT METHANE EMISSIONS
Based on a shared commitment to sustainable ruminant livestock farming, the partners to the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium, New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre and Zoetis, the leading animal health company, are collaborating to explore research mechanisms that may inhibit methane emissions from cattle, deer and sheep and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A pillar of this effort is data-driven management of the effects of livestock production on the environment, including its contribution to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
The goal for the collaboration is to identify potential small molecules to enter Zoetis’ research and development pipeline that can increase livestock productivity and farmer profitability while reducing environmental impacts. The PGgRc owns the intellectual property this investment is developing and has a commitment to deliver the mitigation solution opportunities to livestock farmers, working with commercial partners and supported by the New Zealand government.
The partners of the PGGRC – Beef+Lamb NZ, Deer Industry NZ, Dairy NZ, Fonterra and AgResearch – will collaborate with Zoetis to further develop intellectual property created and owned by PGGRC. The PGGRC was created by its partners to provide knowledge and tools for New Zealand farmers, so they can mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector.
“We welcome the collaboration which builds on the consortium’s considerable efforts to develop solutions for grazing livestock farmers. While we have advanced the options for our ruminant livestock to reduce GHG emissions through research investment, we recognise that these solutions need to also work across the needs of livestock farm systems and will require a supportive collaborative partner to advance them to eventual delivery into ruminant farmers hands,” says PGGRC Board Chair Dr. Jeremy Hill. “Zoetis provides our programme with the ideal partner to do that, and we look forward to accelerating our progress with them over the next few years.”
The collaboration will be working with the NZAGRC and will draw on AgResearch and University of Auckland, Brimble Lab science expertise to identify and prove the compounds that can be effective in reducing our ruminant industries methane emissions.
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