Dairy producers will begin reporting methane emissions
At the UN International Climate Conference, six major dairy producers, including Danone, Kraft, Heinz and Nestle, said they would begin reporting methane emissions by the middle of next year. They intend to provide technical and financial support to supplying farmers to find solutions to possible emissions reductions. In particular, one of the solutions may be the transition to new feed additives.
Danone has committed to reducing methane emissions by 30% by 2030.
Globally, food production accounts for about a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. According to the UN, livestock production accounts for about 30% of global anthropogenic methane emissions.
Ecologist, executive director of the “Earth Touches Everyone” project of the Nature Conservation Association, Vladimir Chuprov, comments:
“Given global averages, methanation fr om cattle is now recognized as a very strong emitter of air emissions when compared to transport, it is comparable to emissions from the global transport sector. The question is what to do in this situation. Ecologists and climatologists recommend diet-related things that are aimed at rationalizing nutrition. In addition to the recommendation to rationalize the diet, that is, reducing animal protein wh ere it is necessary from a health point of view, there are other trends in which humanity or companies and countries are trying to solve this problem. Including not through what is associated with behavior, but through what is associated with technology, that is, the technology track. These two tracks do not exclude each other; the technology track has not yet found a technology that could solve this. There are technologies that offer a solution to the problem of replacing animal protein obtained from large-scale livestock farming with insect protein. There are technologies, just as there are technologies that usually use vegetable protein with flavoring additives, which allow, without violating taste preferences, a person to replace real beef with something that is indistinguishable in taste and smell from real beef, but is a product of processing vegetable protein . If we talk about this technology track, the problem of price parity has not yet been resolved. At least, what is associated with the processing of vegetable protein, that is, it turns out to be quite expensive. There were several startups and companies, including entry into the Russian market, but these new technologies have not yet taken off, and so far I have not heard about them in a way that would be somehow mainstream. That is, the question is when these technologies will become economically available. A lot will depend on China here.”
The narrative of switching to alternative protein sources is being actively promoted in the West. It is reported about the opening of new industries, the raw materials for which are insects. In our country, such startups are still exotic. But not so long ago it was reported about the opening of a snail farm in the Kursk region. It is planned to make pastries, pates and dumplings from the Mediterranean snail. The media also reported on the opening of cricket flour production in the Stavropol Territory and Moscow Region.
