Keep it real
OPINION: With the Government applying some fiscal discipline to scientific research funding, this mutt thinks it might be timely to look at what's still being done in the ag-science space.
It shows that between 2022 and 2023, total emissions from agriculture decreased 2.2% which included a 1.6% drop in dairy cattle emissions due to a fall in dairy cow numbers.
This is part of a trend that has seen methane emissions from dairy cattle decrease by 4.11% since 2017.
DairyNZ statistics show a 3.4% decrease in cow numbers - from 4.84 million in the 2021/22 season to 4.67 million in the 2022/23 season.
Average milk production per cow however increased over this same period by 1.8%, up to 393kgMS from 386kgMS.
