Genetics Allows Selection of Cattles that Produce Less Methane

An Anglo-Danish biological insights group has identified a way to reduce emissions from cattle by selecting the ones that produce less methane using genetic tools.

Using genetics, scientists from Synomics identified a gene in cattle that causes excessive methane production. The group claims that selective breeding will help farmers breed cattle with significantly lower methane output and reduce agricultural emissions.

The Synomics study used its proprietary combinatorial analytics and prediction engine to analyze phenotypic and metagenomic data and looked at more than 1,000 dairy cows from two breeds and five countries to identify targets for the association between host animal genome, its rumen microbiome, and its methane emission.

For more details, read the article in Food Navigator.