Monitoring, Reporting and Verification for methane emissions in the livestock sector Jean Baptiste DOLLE – French Livestock Institute – COPA COGECA

Methane emission is responsible for around 50% of milk and beef sector GHG emissions. In livestock production systems main sources of methane are related to enteric fermentation and manure management and several mitigations techniques have been identified to reduce these emission sources. In this context, contribution of the livestock sector to climate change and measurement of mitigation action are creating demand for credible measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) of GHG emissions including methane.

In France, assessments are being standardised using a specific whole farm assessment tool, considering methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide emissions. The CAP’2ER1 is a modelling environmental footprint calculator for ruminant livestock farms, developed by the French Livestock Institute (IDELE) thanks to the LIFE Carbon Dairy and LIFE Beef Carbon projects. From a technical perspective, measuring the effects of changes in livestock management practices on GHG emissions requires adoption of complete methodologies to estimate emissions. 150 activity data have to be collected in farms by trained consultants for evaluating methane (kg CH4) and GHG emissions (kg eq CO2); and capturing effect of changes in livestock management. The IPCC tier 3 methodology developed in CAP’2ER permits to characterize methane emissions and mitigations according to animal productivity, feed intake, feed digestibility, forage and concentrate types, manure types and manure management. The whole farm- level carbon diagnosis CAP’2ER is the corner stone of the climate initiatives of French dairy and beef value chains. Over 9 300 dairy farms and 4 000 beef farms have adopted mitigation measures as part of the initiative in France but also in Ireland, Italy and Spain.

For certifying the methane and GHG emission reductions achieved by livestock farms, a methodology called CARBON AGRI2 has been developed in France. Under the umbrella of the low carbon standard “Label Bas Carbon”, CARBON AGRI has been certified by the Ministry of Environment. The mechanism is based on monitoring the farm’s methane and carbon efficiencies over 5 years, with initial baseline audit using CAP’2ER and a second audit 5 years later. The methodology allows for accounting the actual reductions resulting of the implementation of farms’ individual mitigation plans. In some cases, verification of information is entrusted by a tiers third party. This mechanism provides a transparent MRV framework for guaranteeing the integrity of GHG reduction projects and developing result based carbon farming schemes.

As data collection for auditing farms and monitoring are time consuming, several solutions are explored to reduce MRV costs. Increased data generally increases accuracy and decreases uncertainty, but a better understanding of GHG emissions on the large sample of farms assessed, will permit using defaults for less significant inputs. Existing policy requirements and farm records, through the CAP for instance, can also provide data needed for audits. Self-recorded and reported data from farmers represent another alternatives to monitor and report implementation of mitigation practices and progress done. Network solutions and Application Programming Interfaces (API) are under developed for sharing input data between organizations. API are also worked and tested with automatic data collection through sensor platforms (collars, eartags,…). While the on-site visit by a consultant remains essential to building a relevant mitigation action plan with the farmer, all these alternatives will contribute to minimize MRV cost in a near future and facilitate upscaling.

1 http://www.cap2er.fr/Cap2er/ 2 https://france-carbon-agri.fr/methodologie-carbon-agri/