Climate Change Mitigation in Livestock Production: Nonconventional Feedstuffs and Alternative Additives

Abstract

Livestock production has widely contributed to increase global production of greenhouse gases (GHG), mostly through digestive fermentation in ruminants. Moreover, emissions derived from livestock are estimated over 14% of the total anthropogenic GHG emissions to atmosphere. In addition, methane emitted from ruminal enteric fermentation is responsible for 25% of the total global methane emissions, which turns livestock activity into a main promoter of the climate change effect. However, these emissions may be diminished by modifying livestock diets through alterations in forage-concentrate ratios, the supplementation of feed additives, and the inclusion of alternative feedstuffs not commonly used as forage and protein sources in farm animal feeding. Additionally, the use of nonconventional feedstuffs is highly recommended since their production does not compete with human feeding and may provide metabolites used as methanogenesis suppressors. Likewise, agricultural by-products should be considered as potential feedstuffs for animal production by increasing the livestock efficiency and reducing the energy losses due to methane synthesis.

The Use of Temperate Tannin Containing Forage Legumes to Improve Sustainability in Forage–Livestock Production

“…Several comprehensive reviews have described different strategies proposed by the scientific community to reduce enteric methane production and mitigate methane emissions [8][9][10][11][12], but in order to be adopted by beef cattle producers, they should be costeffective and socially acceptable. Rumen defaunation, for instance, has been shown to reduce CH 4 emissions from ruminants by 50%, due to the fact that protozoans are large producers of H 2 with many methanogens among these microorganisms [13]; however, the lack of persistent response due to rapid adaptation and recovery of protozoal numbers along with impractical defaunation methods has limited its use [14].…”

Leucaena leucocephala y Opuntia ficus-indica reducen la producción de metano in vitro

“…Tan solo en México, en 2015 se registró un total de emisiones de 510,043 Gg de CO2e (equivalentes de CO2), de los cuales el 13% está relacionado con la actividad ganadera; aproximadamente el 40% de estas emisiones es metano (INECC, 2018). Debido a esto, infinidad de investigaciones alrededor del mundo han tratado de crear diversas estrategias que disminuyan la producción de metano ruminal, a través de: modificaciones en la dieta, el empleo de diversos aditivos, vacunas, uso de extractos naturales, administración de compuestos químicos y, últimamente la suplementación de compuestos bio-activos extraídos de plantas (Martin et al, 2010;Pámanes-Carrasco et al, 2019).…”

“…Adicionalmente, la adición de células vivas, como las levaduras, muestran una reducción en la metanogénesis en experimentos in vitro (Hristov et al, 2013). Además, ambas especies (LL y OFI) contienen metabolitos secundarios, tales como taninos condensados, saponinas y/o flavonoides, que pueden actuar como inhibidores de la síntesis de metano (Aye y Adegun, 2013;Alves et al, 2017;Pámanes-Carrasco et al, 2019;). Consecuentemente, el uso de estas especies como fuentes de forraje en la alimentación de rumiantes pueden ser una alternativa en la reducción de las emisiones de GEI, metano principalmente; sin afectar el desarrollo productivo.…”