For the milk in its yogurts, Danone wants cows that emit less methane

The agri-food giant danone announced on Tuesday that it expects to reduce methane emissions related to raising the cows from which it extracts fresh milk by 30% by 2030 compared to 2020 levels.

“We will see how we can improve practices on farms in general,” Jeanette Coombs-Lanot, spokeswoman for the group, told AFP. Among the measures being considered to achieve this, is resorting to breeds that emit less methane, optimizing diets, keeping cows in production for longer and capturing manure emissions to produce biogas.

The environmental balance of bovine farming is increased by the digestion of cows, which, when they belch, expel methane, whose warming potential is much higher than carbon dioxide. Methane also comes out of the manure.

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“Danone is the first food group to have set a specific goal to reduce methane emissions”, the statement highlights.

This objective is in line with the “Global methane pledge”with which a hundred countries committed, during COP26 in 2021, to reduce methane emissions by at least 30% by 2030 compared to 2020.

Danone’s target covers fresh milk, purchased directly from 58,000 dairy farms in 20 countries and accounting for 70% of their methane emissions.

But it does not concern the powdered milk in baby formulas, which they obtain through intermediaries.

Danone claims to have reduced “around 14% its methane emissions between 2018 and 2020″.

In Morocco, where the group collects milk through three small producers, “Enormous progress can be made by optimizing production”indicated Coombs-Lanot by way of example.

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Improving the milk yield of each cow makes it possible to reduce, without altering production, the number of animals present on the farm and, therefore, emissions.

Danone also wants to study innovations to filter the methane emitted by cows, through a device installed on the halter, or reduce their methane production thanks to algae-based feeding devices, for example.

A report from United Nations Program for the Environment stressed in 2021 that technological solutions only have a “limited potential” in significantly reducing emissions from the agricultural sector.

The document advocated first of all for behavioral changes, such as improving the management of livestock farms or the adoption by humans of diets with little or no meat and dairy.

Source: AFP