Predictive Power Of Dairy Cattle Methane Models Insufficient To Provide Sound Environmental Advice
This article describes research that shows that current equations to predict methane production from cows are inaccurate and not suitable to quantifying the amount of greenhouse gases attributable to cows.
According to data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, farmed animals are responsible for 18% of all greenhouse gases emitted. About 52% of all greenhouse gases originate from the dairy sector in the form of methane. Several whole-farm models predict the total amount of greenhouse gases emitted from dairy farms. These estimates are sometimes used in farm management changes.
This research team compiled a dataset of actual methane emission values from dairy cattle and compared them with the results predicted from whole-farm models. The results showed that the prediction accuracy of the equations was low compared with the actual values, at least partly because most equations do not use any dietary information, but instead base methane production on feed intake or milk production.