SA-based climate technology company CH4 Australia, which is working with farmers to produce beef from methane-reduced cattle, has been named the SA Climate Change Leader for Business and Industry.
Following a CSIRO experiment which demonstrated the methane-reducing benefits of Asparagopsis seaweed, CH4 became the first rights holders in Australia and New Zealand to produce a commercial seaweed that can be added to cattle feed.
As a result, the Asparagopsis seaweed cattle feed is predicted to reduce the methane gas produced by cattle by 90 per cent. This is a huge step towards lowering global emissions, considering that approximately 14% of all greenhouse gas emissions from human activity comes from our livestock.
Lowering global emissions is crucial to the survival of the Australian livestock industry, as theorised by Bobbie Lewis Baida – a University of Adelaide PhD candidate researching the effects of climate change on sheep production.
Bobbie Lewis Baida has been named the overall winner of the Premier’s Climate Change Council 2022 SA Climate Leaders Awards and was awarded a $10,000 prize for her research at an event at U City on Franklin Street last night.
Ms Lewis Baida found that a 1°C increase in global temperatures could lower sheep reproductive rates by up to 20 per cent in some areas of Australia, equalling almost $97 million each year in financial losses.
As SA’s multibillion-dollar sheep industry is susceptible to more extreme hot weather, the research will be important in building resilience in the agriculture sector.
Ms Lewis Baida, who was also the inaugural winner for the new Research and Education category, will use the data to quantify the effect of rising temperatures on the welfare, reproduction and lamb growth, and development of grazing sheep.
As well as the overall winner, the awards recognise four category winners:
- Research and Education: Bobbie Lewis Baida – for critical research into the impact of climate change on Australian sheep production.
- Business and Industry: CH4 Australia – for innovation and leadership in working towards a solution to reduce methane emissions using locally grown Asparagopsis seaweed feed supplements.
- Community: Deidre Knight – for building awareness of climate change through biodiversity projects in urban communities.
- Government: SA Water – for shaping a sustainable energy future through their Zero Cost Energy Future initiative.
For more information and to read case studies of the winners and finalists visit here.
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