Millions of preschoolers can tell a pig from a cow, but when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, can adults hold up their end of the discussion? Marlowe and Chad, aka the Bacon Buddies and hosts of the “Raised on the Farm” podcast, sit down with Frank Mitloehner to talk about food choices — and why they should remain so — how swine farms and cattle operations differ in respect to GHGs, the U.S. animal ag emissions report card and most of all, why we need to keep talking and learning. 

Billing their show as “ag like you’ve never seen or heard it before” and the place “where food news and pop culture collide,” millennials and farmers Natalie Kovarik and Tara Vander Dussen are in cyberspace each week with provocative, enlightening and entertaining convos that shed light on the what, the where and the how of our food supply. 

By Emily C. Dooley

Published on UC Davis, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Not all cattle are the same when it comes to grazing. Some like to wander while others prefer to stay close to water and rest areas. 

Source: Lallemand 

MILWAUKEE – Feb 22nd, 2024 – Madison Kindberg, a graduate student at the University of California, Davis, pursuing a master’s degree in animal biology, is a recipient of a $3,000 Lallemand Forward Scholarship.

California’s cattle ranchers contribute a significant amount to the region’s culture, economy and food supply, but do they also inadvertently help to temper the wildfires that have been plaguing the state? And if so, is it a better alternative – environmentally speaking – to letting grasslands burn?

Yanhong Liu, an associate professor of animal nutrition and a member of the CLEAR Center at University of California, Davis (UC Davis), is bolstering the work of the five-year-long international PIG-PARADIGM study currently underway. In addition to lending her well-regarded expertise in animal nutrition and experience gained from her work to reduce antibiotics use in swine, Liu and other faculty from UC Davis are leading a project team of postdoctoral researchers and Ph.D. candidates in nutrition, microbiology and big data analysis.

This news release is based on information communicated by the CDFA.

Several months after the California Department of Food and Agriculture; University of California, Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences; and UC Davis CLEAR Center staged the State of the Science Summit: Feed Strategies to Reduce Enteric Emissions May 2 and 3, 2023, organizers have issued a written report to capsulize some of the information shared at the conference and to encourage others to join them in a spirit of cooperation aim

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.