Methane vaccine could be a 'game changer'

Posted: 25 Jul 2021

A methane vaccine would be a real game changer, not only for the New Zealand and global dairy sector but for livestock-based food production as it would probably apply across multiple ruminant species such as cows, beef cattle, sheep and deer, chairman of the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium, Professor Jeremy Hill says. 

A vaccine could also be used across different types of farming systems and unlike other potential solutions, would not be reliant on a certain type of feeding system.

However, developing the vaccine is “very challenging” because of the mechanism used, he says. “We have proven in principle that there is nothing to stop us being able to do this. We can develop the right antibodies, and we can get animals to produce them. But getting that to work so that we get a consistently large amount of antibodies that then go into the saliva to the rumen is still the hurdle that we are trying to overcome."

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