Peter gave an interesting overview of how ruminants produce methane and the strategies that are being investigated for reducing, or even eliminating, this methane. 


Feeds which lead to reduced methane production have been studied and the science team now have a fairly good understanding of why feeding brassicas lowers methane emissions. It is due to changes in the rumen bacterial community. 


Breeding for low methane animals is also progressing well and a number of reasons for the differences in emissions have been discovered. 


Vaccine and inhibitor development involves in-depth knowledge of the rumen methanogens in order to decide how to target and knock them out. Genomic studies have aided this work and also investigating rumen contents from around the world has helped to identify the prime candidates. 


The vaccine and inhibitor programmes are currently in the midst of animal trials and, given recent positive results, the teams are hopeful that proof of concept will be established very soon.


See more about the progress in the inhibitors programme