Opportunities for Improving Productivity and Reducing Methane Emissions in Smallholder Dairy Systems in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Full citation:

Frederick, Caitlan, Mario Herrero, Gabrielle Dreyfus, Carlos Gonzalez-Fisher, and Yifan Powers. 2023. “Opportunities for Improving Productivity and Reducing Methane Emissions in Smallholder Dairy Systems in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.” Precision Development. https://precisiondev.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IGSDPxD-Methane-Mitigation-through-Organic-Carbon-Strategies-03-10-24-1.pdf

Authors:

Caitlan Frederick, Mario Herrero, Gabrielle Dreyfus, Carlos Gonzalez-Fisher, Yifan Powers

Links:

https://www.nber.org/papers/w32048

Abstract:

Livestock in primarily low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) contribute 70% of the global non-carbon dioxide (non-CO₂ ) emissions from ruminants, and this share is expected to increase as the demand for livestock products increases in these countries. While feed additives and technologies for methane inhibition are receiving the most attention and investment, these solutions are unlikely to work for smallholder and pastoral farmers in the short to medium term, due to the cost, the state of commercial availability, and other institutional barriers to accessing and adopting new technologies in LMIC contexts. Similarly, alternative proteins are a longer-term protein substitution solution, in terms of market access and readiness, with adoption in the LMIC expected to lag significantly. Manure management is a demonstrated methane mitigation approach that is partially addressed through reduction in animal numbers. However, manure is a relatively small source of emissions from the livestock sector. The primary methane mitigation strategy appropriate for smallholder contexts is to increase productivity and reduce methane emissions per quantity of milk, while simultaneously reducing animal numbers. The recommendations provided in this review follow these general themes: increase productivity and reduce herd size, tailor metrics and markets to incentivize reductions in both total methane emissions and methane emission intensity, provide technical support to farmers and extensionists to increase the uptake of efficient production strategies, and launch pilot projects to test scalable interventions for overcoming barriers to methane reduction strategies.