Tests showed a single dose of a new product reduced by three-quarters a cow's planet-heating methane emissions for 100 days. File photo. Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
A solution to dairy cows' methane-laced burps could be ready to sell to NZ farmers next year, but Australian farmers will get it first.
There is already a methane-cutting product on the market for feedlot cattle overseas, but grazing animals like those in New Zealand and Australia have proved slower to solve.
New Zealand company Ruminant Biotech has developed a small metal capsule or bolus, which delivers a potent methane-squashing medicine into an animal's gut.
The substance inside the capsule can be found in a particular kind of seaweed, but the plan is to manufacture it in an industrial plant in New Zealand, instead of harvesting vast amounts of seaweed.
Pill to suppress cows methane laced burps ready next year
Spokesperson Tom Breen said a New Zealand trial showed a single dose reduced by three-quarters a cow's planet-heating methane emissions for 100 days.
The process of inserting the bolus would be familiar to farmers, he said.
"Think of a larger drench gun."
Researchers are now trying to get the effect lasting six months.
The company has not publicly published its results, but government-funded climate investor AgriZero was sufficiently impressed to chip in another $4 million, on top of the $1.8 million it invested last year.
The company also received $7.8 million in research funding from the government's Climate Emergency Response Fund in 2022, and a smaller investment from the government-funded New Zealand Green Investment Fund.
An upcoming study by the University of Sydney - looking at whether the treatment affects beef cattle's meat production - will be shared publicly, said Breen. He said the treatment was safe for animals.
Breen said having produced good results in the New Zealand trial, the company planned to use the next six months to produce its first commercial product.
"We've made substantial progress over the last three years."
He said the goal was for it to be available in Australia in 2025.
Breen said the company is aiming to have a product ready for New Zealand farmers in 2027.
He said the delay was because New Zealand regulations for methane inhibitors treated them like an animal medicine, and were very comprehensive, while Australia had very few restrictions.
Investor AgriZero has asked the government to loosen up a little on regulating methane inhibitors, writing a submission to the Ministry for Primary Industries saying New Zealand risked being left behind in the race to make farming more climate friendly.
But AgriZero's Ruth Leary said while there was room for streamlining, there were good reasons why New Zealand had more hurdles than Australia.
"Unlike New Zealand, they're not as export-reliant and we rely on our reputation as an exporter of safe agricultural products, our milk and our meat," she said.
With no price on making methane emissions at the moment, there is no direct incentive from the government to use products like this in New Zealand to lower farming's emissions.
Leary said companies such as Mars and Nestle were offering incentive payments for cleaner farming in their supply chains, but more incentives were needed to encourage farmers.
It has been a long search for a slow-release methane inhibitor that works in grazing animals, with commercial products available overseas - such as 3-NOP or Bovaer - only working in feedlots. There, animals can be continuously fed a powder with their grain.
Leary said AgriZero only invested in six of the more than 100 products assessed for cutting farming emissions. This was the only one delivering methane-cutting molecules with a bolus inside a grazing cow.
"These guys are based in New Zealand, so they know our farming system well and they're the only inhibitor-type product we've seen that is developing a slow-release solution for the pasture-based farming system," said Leary.
Other possible solutions being worked on include a methane vaccine, and a compound harvested from daffodils.