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Here is something you might not know: gassy livestock are a massive contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, in a piece for The Conversation, Maria Herrero — Chief Research Scientist, Food Systems and the Environment, CSIRO — reported that “Around 1.6-2.7 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases each year, mostly methane, are produced from livestock digestion.” The livestock in question is cattle, goats, pigs, chickens and, most importantly for today, sheep.Those numbers hit especially close to home in New Zealand, where sheep famously out number humans by seven to one. Last year, The Economist pointed out that a third of the country’s contribution to global warming came from ruminant-belched methane. Aka, farm burps.This has now lead some very forward thinking scientists at Invermay Agricultural Centre in Mosgiel to breed less gassy sheep that produce 10 percent less methane through burps and farts. We are really living in the future now, people.The project is lead by senior scientist and quantitative geneticist Suzanne Rowe from Agricultural research company AgResearch. She explained to the ABC that it took them three generations of breeding to get this result. They started with 100 ewes who were separated into breeding groups dependent on their gassiness.In case you were wondering how one actually measures a sheep’s burp for methane, they put the sheep in a sealed chamber for 40 minutes to an hour to let the emissions collect.
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