Livestock Manure Methane Is Soaring, But ‘Resource Recovery’ Isn’t Working [Now is a Climate Crisis]
It is urgent to come up with countermeasures as methane, one of the greenhouse gases, is expected to increase rapidly.
According to the analysis of the entire livestock waste treatment process for the first time in Korea, the largest source of methane emissions was pigs (73%), and only 14% of pig waste was used for biogas in the public sector. It has been
pointed out that it is urgent to come up with countermeasures as methane from livestock waste is increasing rapidly but 'resource conversion' is insufficient. [Photo = Climate Solution]
About half of domestic methane emissions come from agriculture. On the other hand, criticism has been raised that the government's greenhouse gas reduction target for livestock farming is too passive.
There are growing voices calling for an urgent reorganization of greenhouse gas reduction policies in the livestock farming sector.
The Climate Solutions and Inha University research team (Professor Yongwoo Hwang, Department of Environmental Engineering) published a report titled 'Livestock Manure Warming the Earth: Solutions for Sustainable Agriculture and Livestock' on the 26th.
The report pointed out that the total domestic methane emissions increased by more than 30% when the calculation standard for the national greenhouse gas inventory was updated from the 1996 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines to the 2006 guidelines.
Methane has a greenhouse effect up to 80 times higher than carbon dioxide, making it a high priority for reduction. Despite this situation, the government has been using outdated calculation standards for a long time, underestimating methane emissions compared to the actual amount.
The agriculture and livestock sector showed the largest change among all sectors, accounting for 70% of the increase in methane emissions in 2022 due to the revision of the IPCC guidelines.
Methane emissions from livestock manure treatment were recalculated from 1.38 million tons (CO2eq, carbon dioxide equivalent) to 3.49 million tons, which is a 2.5-fold increase from the previous figure.
The increase in the number of livestock is also expected to increase methane emissions in the future. The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs forecasted that the number of cattle and pigs will continue to increase until 2050. It predicted that pigs will increase by 32%.
Currently, the livestock and livestock sectors account for nearly half of domestic methane emissions (43% as of 2022), and if the scale of livestock is expanded, methane emissions in the livestock sector are expected to increase further in the future.
The research team also paid attention to methane emissions from manure by livestock type. It was revealed that 73% of the methane generated during the entire livestock manure treatment process comes from
pig manure. This means that pig manure can reduce methane emissions from livestock manure treatment the most. Next, cattle manure such as beef cattle and dairy cattle accounted for about 23%, and chicken manure accounted for about 4%.
Methane emissions from livestock manure treatment by livestock type. [Photo = Climate Solutions]
In order to suppress methane emissions, the 'biogasification' method, which utilizes livestock manure as an energy source instead of making it into compost or liquid fertilizer, is advantageous. Currently, only 14% of pig manure from farms is input into biogas facilities (recovery rate).
Lee Sang-ah, a researcher at Climate Solutions' methane team, said, "Reducing greenhouse gases is essential for the sustainable transition of agriculture, and this is also an opportunity to revitalize the rural economy." She added, "The government can no longer be passive in reducing greenhouse gases in agriculture, and must actively invest the budget, technology, and projects in rural areas to ensure that national resources actually reach agricultural sites."
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