David Hughes - NZAGRC Chair Fieldays address

As a nation we have set ourselves challenging greenhouse gas targets - and our major customers are demanding those targets and more. We, the Research Centre, are working to ensure that farmers have a suite of fit for purpose tools and technologies to cost effectively deliver world leading low emissions products.

Major innovation missions like ours require 3 huge leaps:

1. Determining if the goal is possible in theory - we call this cracking the fundamentals
2. Taking the theory and rendering it into practice by making a prototype - we call this creating a proof of concept
3. Putting the technology into the hands of companies so that they can go from a prototype to full scale production - we call this creating solutions

After 10 years how are we going? Have we made significant progress on the first great leap?

When we started our work, we did not know if it was possible to reduce methane without impacting the viability of farming. Through a series of break throughs, we, and our colleagues around the world, have demonstrated that in theory our goal is achievable. We have learnt that:

-  The rumen microbiome is similar around the world so global solutions are possible

-  We can induce a response in an animal’s immune system against methane producing microorganisms, so vaccines are possible

-  We have found chemical compounds which reduce methane production in animals and compounds which reduce N2O in the field, so inhibitors are possible

-  Methane production in sheep has a genetic component, so breeding is possible

While our work shows that in theory interventions are possible there is still a lot of work to be done to get them to work in practice.

We are working on each of these pathways in parallel rather that betting the farm on one particular technology.  We are loading up silver buckshot not a single silver bullet.

This funding boost will significantly lift the pace at which we can get this work done. The government has given us booster rockets as we make the 2nd great leap. This work is underway, and in some cases quite advanced, but each technology faces barriers which need to be overcome.

-  Breeding needs to be rolled out from sheep to other species and we need a rapid way of measuring methane production in the field.

-  Methane inhibitors need a slow-release delivery mechanism and a way of getting around the risk of microbiome adaption and resistance

-  Vaccines need to move from working in a lab to working in a live animal

-  N2O inhibitors need to work more consistently

Challenges like these are just part of every journey.

When Thomas Edison’s team was in the middle of their innovation journey to invent the light bulb, they were struggling to find a filament which would last more than a few seconds. He had tested thousands of different materials with no success. A reporter asked him if after all those failures if it was time to quit.  Edison replied I have not failed I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. After testing over 6000 materials they found one that worked and the rest is history. We have lightbulbs because of their tenacity.

We, the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas research Centre, are on a mission to ensure a healthy environment, thriving farmers, and delivering on New Zealand’s agricultural emissions commitments.

With tenacity and creativity, we are confident we will meet that challenge.