CLEAR Center

So, it might not be the type of reading you toss in your beach bag, but according to people who know, it’s something you nevertheless should read – or at least read about.

“It is very technical, but it is standard setting,” says Frank Mitloehner, an expert in animal agriculture and air quality from University of California, Davis, where he also directs the CLEAR Center, an organization committed to finding better, more sustainable ways to grow the world’s food

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Among the many challenges facing hog farmers in the United States is the commonly occurring incidence of post-weaning diarrhea. At best, the affliction requires the administration of antibiotics; at worst, it results in the spread of infection among weaned pigs, at times leading to more diarrhea, loss of appetite and even their death.

When the workday is over for Wen Murphy, more often than not, he continues to think about his job. A fourth-generation farmer, he constantly keeps top of mind the staff, the animals, the productivity, the supplies, the cash flow and myriad other details that must be attended to. In short, the sustainability of being a hog farmer. But above all, he is preoccupied with what he will leave for his family members and others who will someday walk the path of those who went before him.

The UC Davis CLEAR Center’s Dr. Frank Mitloehner spoke on the Dairy Intelligent podcast in an episode called Rethinking Methane. Dr. Mitloehner explained how methane warms our atmosphere differently than other greenhouse gases, and how rethinking methane's role in our atmosphere reveals that animal agriculture can feasibly be on the path to climate neutrality. 

The audience and presenters at the State of the Science Summit held May 2 and 3 at University of California, Davis repped training, degrees, experience, resumes and IQ points worth writing home about. For what may well be the first time, federal and state government agencies, sustainability organizations, scientists, academics and farmers came together to discuss how to make animal agriculture more sustainable by reducing enteric emissions.

• California is the leading dairy producer in the United States and is mandated to reduce methane emissions by 40% by 2030.
• Unlike carbon dioxide, which persists for hundreds of years, methane is a short-lived flow gas that warms at a high level for 12 years.
• Scientists at University of Oxford have developed a new metric – known as GWP* – that more accurately depicts the warming potential of methane.
• GWP* can help measure methane’s impact on temperature, which other metrics have been unable to do.

• A new paper published in Animal: The International Journal of Animal Biosciences puts GWP* to the test in real-life scenarios. The authors, all internationally known and well-regarded climate scientists, physicists, animal scientist and air quality specialists, use six case studies to compare GWP* to GWP100 and demonstrate the effect various scenarios may have on global warming using each matrix.

• First work to apply GWP* to sectoral emissions from a North American animal production system.
• Serves as case study for the application of GWP* to smaller industry- and locale-specific CH4 emissions data. 
• GWP* matches the dynamics of warming from declining background CH4 emissions better than GWP-based emissions.

The CLEAR Center at the University of California, Davis has begun a partnership with the National Pork Board (NPB) to further sustainability research and extension in swine production. The CLEAR Center, led by Dr. Frank Mitloehner, leverages world-class research and science communication to improve sustainability in animal agriculture. 

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