Two farmers on methane

Amy and Hamish Bielski write:

You might be thinking that everyone has to play their part – the sacrifice needs to fall on every sector in the battle against global warming. If that is the case, we should compare ‘apples with apples.’ Our ruminant methane and your car emissions are both greenhouse gases – but they differ significantly. Our emissions can only occur by our using lots of CO2 – greenhouse gas – to create them.

Compared to you, we have a ‘net’ position. Here is what our research showed.

According to a paper published called Phase 3 Multivariate analysis of Greenhouse Gas emissions from sheep and beef farms – April 2020 it takes up to 7 tonnes of CO2 to grow a hectare of grass on our farm. It’s called photosynthesis (if you can’t remember your college science.) Plants use CO2, sunlight, water and mineral salts.

We turn those 7 tonnes of CO2 per hectare into enough feed for 10 ewes. Those 10 ewes each emit about 20 – 22 grams of methane a day which means they produce in total 80 kgs of methane per year. It is accepted that methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 – generally regarded as 28 times stronger. If we multiply our ewe’s 80 kgs of methane by 28 we get 2,250 kgs of CO2 equivalent.

We are, therefore, using over three times more CO2 than we emit. A car owner cannot say that. Or a coal fired boiler. Or a private jet going to a climate conference. Farmers are not quite the villains we are made out to be.

A reasonable argument.