Nuclear and related techniques to measure the impact of type of feeding and production system on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and livestock productivity

Livestock are fundamental for sustainable development, especially in developing countries, providing much needed nutrients for healthy households as well as income from sale of animal and animal products. However, livestock keeping faces many challenges including availability of adequate quantity and quality feed, in addition to contributing to the climate change problem. Global warming has occurred as greenhouse gases (GHG) accumulate. Global livestock agriculture has been cited to be responsible for 18% of anthropogenic GHG emissions annually. Greenhouse gas emission from livestock production is influenced by a number of factors, including diet composition and digestibility. Nutrition and feeding strategies may be able to reduce GHG emissions intensities by up to 15%. In many developing countries, poor quantity and quality of animal diets are major challenges to livestock production. Better balancing of key nutrients in the diet would increase digestion efficiency and reduce the carbon footprint of animal products. This project aims to enable IAEA member states (MS), especially developing countries, to use nuclear and related technologies and resources to optimise livestock feeding practices that reduce GHG emissions and help mitigate climate change. Specifically, it aims to (i) evaluate nitrogen and energy supplementation strategies in cattle feeding to mitigate enteric and manure GHG emission (ii) develop and/or validate nuclear and related tools/resources for nutrition related GHG mitigation in cattle production (iii) to provide MS with tools and mechanisms to monitor livestock GHG emissions. Nuclear techniques involving compound-specific stable isotope (CSSI) of 15N will be utilised to achieve the above objectives. The project will run for five years and will involve 10 Research Contract (RC) holders from developing countries, three Technical Contract (TC) holders and four Research Agreement (RA) holders from laboratories engaged in high level livestock GHG emission and mitigation research.