SAC Research

How might beef and sheep farmers incorporate breeding technologies in their farming practices to reduce emissions of methane?

Adopting selective breeding can reduce methane production per kg of meat produced and increase profit for farmers, thus providing a ‘win-win’ solution. However, historically, adoption of breeding technologies has been much slower by sheep and beef cattle farmers than for other farm species, despite the apparent economic benefit. This seminar reports on 42 semi-structured interviews with beef and sheep farmers and industry participants around the UK, seeking to elucidate the reasons for breeding decisions and attitudes to methane emissions.

A number of barriers to adoption of breeding for methane reduction were raised such as lack of trust in scientifically-derived evaluations of the breeding merit of animals and the cultural role of breeding. Market signals are complex: many farmers rely on payments for ecosystem services and provision of high-quality ‘natural’ meat - a product they perceive to be adversely affected by adoption of some technologies.  Perhaps most tellingly, methane emissions are viewed by farmers as a natural and inevitable product of sheep and beef farming – one that has always existed and which cannot be influenced by farmers’ practices. Focus on methane requires farmers to recognise a new source of ‘pollution’ which is non-visible, not easily measured and not associated with ‘industrial’ production.