Methane Emissions During Dairy Manure Management: Current Issues and Opportunities

The New Zealand’s greenhouse gases inventory currently uses a country-specific methodology to compute methane emissions occurring during farm dairy manure management. Unfortunately, this methodology is mathematically flawed and based on highly uncertain and potentially irrelevant data. These errors and uncertainties have contributed to a perception that the amount of methane emitted during manure management is negligible in comparison to enteric emissions, and this perception is at the foundation of New Zealand investment strategy for mitigating the carbon footprint of its dairy sector. Our research instead demonstrates methane emissions during manure management, which are technically easy to mitigate, are indeed significant.