Sheep farmers offered new route to lower methane flocks

Sheep farmers will soon be able to use new breeding tools designed to cut flock carbon footprints while protecting productivity and profitability.

The tools have been developed through Breed for CH4nge, a £3 million research project looking at ewe efficiency and methane emissions in UK sheep flocks.

The project was funded through Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme and delivered by Innovate UK alongside 11 industry partners, including the National Sheep Association. Sheep breeding company Innovis led the work.

Data gathered from 40 varied flocks confirmed that methane emissions in sheep are heritable.

The findings have paved the way for a new estimated breeding value, or EBV, for methane output.

That EBV feeds into the new Breed for CH4nge index, which ranks animals on their breeding potential for a naturally lower carbon footprint.

The tools will be available this season for maternal rams from Innovis.

They are also expected to be rolled out through other performance-recording maternal sheep breeder groups involved in the project.

The index will then be made available to other maternal performance recording sheep breeders through Signet.

The aim is to help reduce enteric methane, which currently accounts for 50% to 60% of a sheep enterprise’s carbon footprint.

NSA chief executive Phil Stocker said the project had been designed from the start to support the wider sheep industry.

He said: “I now hope all sheep breeders can look at and make use of what this project has achieved.”

SRUC sheep geneticist Dr Nicola Lambe said the project had produced “a hugely important, high quality data set” from commercial flocks.

She said the work had helped researchers understand the genetic control of methane emissions and the mechanisms affecting them.

Dr Lambe added that the new tools could support both productivity and sustainability in UK sheep flocks.

She said the research positioned the UK among “the world-leaders in breeding for reduced methane emissions from sheep”.

Dr Janet Roden said livestock emissions were “not always easy conversations”, particularly because sheep and cattle farming were often “unfairly portrayed in the popular press”.

However, she said the project had identified “win-win solutions” for farmers and the environment.

She added that the findings could help producers improve the environmental credentials of their products while responding to consumer concerns over the footprint of meat.

Researchers also found major differences in emissions between lambs, even when they had been managed together from birth.

Feed intake data showed that the most efficient lambs ate 20% less feed but grew at the same rate as less efficient lambs.

However, this was not reflected in differences in methane emissions.

Daily intake and feed efficiency both appeared to be highly heritable, meaning they are likely to be passed on to the next generation.

Innovis chief executive Dewi Jones described this as “a very encouraging finding”.

The project also helped participating flocks build stronger data on other heritable traits linked to flock performance and carbon footprint.

These included resistance to gut worms, ewe weight, body condition and genomic profiles.

Mr Jones said early findings suggested there were “no real antagonisms” with traits directly linked to ewe and lamb performance and health.

He said the data was now being used to improve EBV accuracy for the breeds involved.

Further research also identified a genetic relationship between smaller rumens and lower methane emissions.

Dr Lambe said this supported the need for more investigation, but reinforced the importance of using methane breeding values alongside other performance measures.

She said this would help avoid unintended impacts on efficiency and profitability.

Researchers also found that differences in the rumen microbiome appeared to have a strong association with methane emissions.

Further work will now look at whether these differences can be passed from generation to generation.

Researchers also hope to develop cost-effective on-farm tests that could help more breeders select sheep with lower methane output without compromising efficiency or profitability.

Project partners included AHDB, the UK Agri-Tech Centre, Harper Adams University, Innovis, NSA, SRUC, Pilgrim’s Europe, Waitrose and several performance-recorded sheep breeder groups.