11 The Business of Canadian Hog Farming Better Pork | December 2024 REDUCING METHANE EMISSIONS duced, so that’s a good thing,” explains Dr. Andrew VanderZaag, a research scientist in Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Science and Technology Branch who works out of the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa. “As much as we know there are emissions, we don’t necessarily know exactly how much is coming from actual farms in Ontario. Methane is produced by microorganisms too small for us to see and the gas itself is invisible and odourless,” he adds. “We are looking to understand what, and when, and how much we are starting from, and looking at options for how to reduce it.” An additional consideration that is particularly relevant to pork producers is the issue of under-barn storage. Manure stored outside is subject to weather conditions. With methane emissions from outdoor manure storages happening in the warm summer and fall temperatures, reduction activities could be targeted during the summer months. However, notes VanderZaag, not enough is known about emissions patterns from under-barn storage. Liquid manure underneath a barn will experience different temperatures at different times of the year, so work needs to be done to determine how that also impacts methane production. “We need to understand the conditions in real manure storages in Ontario – like manure temperature and degradability of carbon in the manure, for example – to ensure baseline emission estimates are accurate,” he says. Biodigestion, for example, is an engineering solution that collects and uses the gas, but it’s not one that is feasible or affordable for many Ontario farms. Another way of approaching the problem is looking for ways to reduce methane production in the first place – by understanding how the microbes, called methanogens, work and figuring out how to slow down their activity, for example. This could mean adding compounds that favour other microbes in the manure and would essentially outcompete the methanogens to either reduce their activity or delay it to a later time of year when temperatures are cool enough to prevent methane production. “Mitigation strategies that have been successful at small-scale need to be tested on farms so we can find out what works and how to make it practical at farm-scale,” says VanderZaag. His lab trials have shown some dramatic impacts from the mitigation strategies his team will be testing on-farm, including the potential to almost completely stop methane production. “We are talking about things that can change the pH, which will make the methanogens inactive for a while, or adding in oxygen, which will have a similar effect; these are the types of the line® VITAMIN/MINERAL PREMIXES & SPECIALTY PRODUCTS FOR SWINE ® ® ® ® ® To help prepare for the increased nutrient demands due to farrowing To help boost nutrient intake during lactation Extra nutrition fed from weaning to breeding A high quality milk replacer for young piglets A drying agent for all stages of pork production CONTACT KENPAL TODAY! Kenpal Farm Products Inc., 69819 London Rd, RR #1 Centralia, ON, N0M 1K0 Tel: 519-228-6444 • Toll Free: 1-800-265-2904 • Fax: 519-228-6560 kpalen@kenpal.on.ca • www.kenpal.on.ca
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