Pioneering ruminant methane mitigation in developing countries.
Richard L. Bowman, the founder and President of RuMeth International, has worked with ruminant methane mitigation in developing countries since the early 1990s. Mr. Bowman began his work in the ruminant methane field in 1991 when he served as the team leader for a series of USEPA sponsored pre-feasibility studies in India, Tanzania, Brazil and Bangladesh. This work was carried out by Mr. Bowman while he was the Director of the Global Livestock Producer’s Program of EnterpriseWorks Worldwide (formerly Appropriate Technology International or ATI).
These studies investigated the potential for developing projects aimed at decreasing ruminant methane emissions in various geographical regions of the world. As the team leader and production specialist for the studies, Mr. Bowman was responsible for analyzing the various production systems, the deficiencies in those systems, and the potential for methane mitigation through targeted interventions. During the course of these studies Mr. Bowman developed the methodology for the field assessment of production systems and how to best reorient those systems to maximize producer profits and minimize methane emissions.
Building on the work of the USEPA studies, Mr. Bowman was the chief architect of the world’s first ruminant methane mitigation project funded for the purpose of carbon offset crediting. This effort, the India Dairy Project, successfully established not only the methodology for the assessment of ruminant methane emissions from a given production system, it also served as a venue to adapt and refine the manufacturing process for producing a low cost methane reducing feed supplement for livestock.
Mr. Bowman and his team went on to design several other ruminant methane project opportunities, the most important of which is the Uganda Cattle Feed Project. This second large scale ruminant methane project was funded by TransAlta Corporation of Alberta Canada. RuMeth International, TransAlta and NutriMix Feeds of Uganda, the project implementer, are currently in the process of presenting the project and its methodology to the CDM Executive Board. Simultaneously, they are working to expand the project beyond its present Kampala regional focus to include project activities throughout all of Uganda.
Mr. Bowman also served in a consulting capacity to the USEPA in the preparation of documents related to the establishment of guidelines for monitoring and measuring ruminant methane emissions. Additionally, he has worked with the USEPA as expert counsel related to the design, development and implementation of ruminant methane mitigation projects and the training of animal production specialists in the field of ruminant methane mitigation assessment.
History of ruminant methane work
Scientists have known for the past 100 years that ruminants emit methane. From the beginning, the release of methane from the animal’s digestive system was recognized as resulting in a reduction of nutrients (in the form of energy) available for productive output by the animal. In developed country agriculture, early efforts were made to understand this phenomenon and address it through improved feeding techniques and strategies. These efforts were purely for the purpose of increasing the productivity, and thus the economic return, of animal agriculture. As global climate change became more of an issue, scientists and others began looking at the potential of these techniques to mitigate ruminant methane as a source of carbon offsets.
In the late 1980’s the United States Environmental Agency (USEPA) began looking seriously at the issue of ruminant methane and the potential to mitigate methane emissions from livestock. This was when the Atmospheric Pollution Prevention Division formed the Ruminant Livestock Efficiency Program (RLEP). At first the focus of the RLEP was on livestock production systems in the U.S.. Program managers soon came to the conclusion that the real potential of large scale mitigation efforts lay within the production systems in the developing world.
With this in mind, the RLEP began a two path course towards exploring the issue of ruminant methane: 1) finding methods to accurately estimate methane emissions 2) identifying technologies that could be employed to mitigate emissions. For the first course of action, the RLEP contracted with private consultants and university researchers to delve into the available research to ascertain the best manner in which to predict emissions. This line of work eventually led to the development of the IPCC Tier 1, and later Tier 2 Enteric Methane Emissions Guidelines.
The second course of action, at first, also involved contracting of university researchers in an effort to catalogue available production techniques that could be employed to reduce methane emissions while simultaneously increasing production. Once sufficient research on production techniques for methane mitigation was assembled, the next step the RLEP took was to ascertain the feasibility of applying these techniques in a developing world context. For this stage of the work, a non-governmental development organization was contracted. EnterpriseWorks Worldwide (formerly Appropriate Technology International or ATI) had an outstanding reputation and track record for the development, design and implementation of technology transfer projects in the lesser developed countries of the world.
The Global Livestock Producer’s Program of EnterpriseWorks Worldwide, led by Richard Bowman, conducted studies in India, Tanzania, Brazil and Bangladesh to ascertain the feasibility of introducing improved production technologies. These studies simultaneously explored the avenues for technology introduction and the potential to effect significant reductions in methane emissions. Over the course of this work, a tremendous knowledge base was developed, not only concerning the application of technology, but also about the estimation of methane emissions from developing country production systems and the affect of targeted interventions on emissions rates. This knowledge base was used in turn by the RLEP to suggest modifications to the IPCC methodologies for estimating enteric methane, especially in a developing country context.