REDUCING METHANE
Cattle contribute to climate change. How can that be solved?
By Coleman Cornelius | May 4, 2026
TO UNDERSTAND METHANE emissions from cattle, start with a cow’s superpower: its rumen.
The rumen is the largest compartment of a cow’s four-chambered stomach, and it is the main player in turning even low-quality forage into high-quality animal protein. This occurs with the help of microbes that bustle in their 105-degree fermentation vat to break down plant fibers and other material, producing energy and nutrients for the animal.
Those microbes – more than a quadrillion in each rumen – generate gases as a byproduct of digestion; these are chiefly methane and carbon dioxide. Cattle release enteric gases, or those produced in the digestive system, each time they belch. And while both methane and carbon dioxide are notable as greenhouse gases, methane is the gas of interest in livestock production because it is so potent, far more capable of trapping heat that contributes to climate change.
Given these enteric methane emissions, some consumers have looked askance at cattle production and have disavowed beef consumption. Yet, with backing from the cattle industry, Colorado State University researchers are leading a nationwide quest to better quantify and reduce methane emissions from cattle.
“If we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, that will connect people differently to agriculture and their food,” said Kim Stackhouse-Lawson, director of AgNext, a CSU research group that advances the science of sustainable animal agriculture.
Sara Place, left, and Kim Stackhouse-Lawson are researchers with AgNext, part of CSU’s College of Agricultural Sciences. Stackhouse-Lawson directs the group, which advances the science of sustainable animal agriculture. Photo: Ben Ward / Colorado State University.
Stackhouse-Lawson, a nationwide leader in enteric methane research, was motivated to join the field as a student at the University of California, Davis, when one of the first Meatless Monday activist events occurred in the college town. Having grown up in Northern California with sheep and cattle, she was perplexed; she had always seen agriculture and the environment as symbiotic.
“Cattle are eating forage that few other animals can eat, very often on ground that cannot be farmed, and they’re turning it into meat, leather, and other products we can use. But they’re also contributing to climate change,” she said. “The question for us is, ‘How low can we get methane emissions and still have a productive animal that turns things we can’t use and eat into things we can use and eat?’”
The conundrum is increasingly urgent, as the cattle industry – like industries of all varieties – examines ways to curtail climate change to comply with environmental regulations, appeal to consumers, improve profit margins, and attain benefits from emerging carbon markets.
“Studying greenhouse gases in the livestock industry is really about animal efficiency. The big win would be an animal with less environmental impact but higher feed efficiency, meaning its ability to efficiently convert feed to meat,” Stackhouse-Lawson said. “I’m excited by practical solutions that will make animals healthier, producers more profitable – and help the environment. We want to know, ‘Where’s that sweet spot?’”
One cow produces roughly 200 pounds of methane each year. It adds up: Livestock, chiefly cattle, produce 25% of U.S. methane emissions from human activities annually, according to 2022 data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Manure management is another key contributor.
To put that in context, methane accounted for 12% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from human activities in 2022; methane from livestock was one component of that total, according to the EPA. Carbon dioxide is the heavyweight in greenhouse gas emissions from human activities – accounting for about 80% of the total – and most of that is generated by transportation, industry, and the production of electricity.
“It’s small in the scheme of things,” Stackhouse-Lawson said of methane emissions from cattle. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t improve it.”
“We’ve got to quantify the greenhouse gases we are producing so we can determine our impact over time, evaluate the usefulness of new technologies and practices, and understand if and how we can help those wanting to offset carbon emissions through carbon credit markets in a move toward carbon neutrality.”
Enteric methane is of particular interest in Colorado, where beef cattle are the driver of an agricultural industry that annually contributes an estimated $47 billion in economic activity to the state, according to the Colorado Department of Agriculture.
Study of enteric methane – with the goals of successfully measuring and mitigating emissions – is a core research focus for AgNext. For instance, the center is now investigating how dietary fat, in the form of soybean oil, can be added to corn-based rations to reduce methane emissions as cattle are managed in feedlots during the final stage of beef production.
Studies of feed additives have been conducted before, but this one is notable for monitoring methane emissions at scale – examining outcomes in a large group of cattle, as would be found in a working feedlot.
That’s critical, Stackhouse-Lawson said, because the research will contribute to the cattle industry’s understanding of baseline emissions at a population level; this allows for more accurate modeling of enteric methane. Modeling, in turn, is pivotal in managing and auditing enteric emissions – the crux of understanding how the industry is doing.
“It’s a new frontier,” Tony Bryant, director of nutrition, research, and analytics for Five Rivers Cattle Feeding, said of challenges and opportunities in the realm of cattle methane emissions. Five Rivers Cattle Feeding, headquartered in Johnstown in Northern Colorado, is the world’s largest cattle feeder and is a frequent partner of AgNext; it often supplies the CSU research group with cattle used in methane research.
“We feel like we have good practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but we’ve got to figure out baseline emissions,” said Bryant, who earned a doctorate from CSU in ruminant nutrition and metabolic physiology. “We’ve got to quantify the greenhouse gases we are producing so we can determine our impact over time, evaluate the usefulness of new technologies and practices, and understand if and how we can help those wanting to offset carbon emissions through carbon credit markets in a move toward carbon neutrality.”
Sara Place, a CSU associate professor of animal sciences, logs into the AgNext computer system from her smartphone to monitor a steer’s methane and other emissions in real time. Photo: Ben Ward / Colorado State University.
Stackhouse-Lawson discussed AgNext research while observing cattle at CSU’s Climate Smart Research Facility. The facility and the research conducted there are supported by some of the biggest names in agriculture, including Five Rivers, Cargill, Dairy MAX, and Merck Animal Health. AgNext research has also been funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Here, in a study led by Sara Place, an associate professor of animal sciences, researchers use specialized technology to monitor how feed additives affect the quantity of methane produced by 250 feedlot steers. Place and her team track precise feed intake, then entice steers into a hooded feed bunk using alfalfa pellets as treats. As the animals munch, equipment analyzes and records enteric gas output with each “burping event,” which occurs about every minute.
While discussing the research, Stackhouse-Lawson logged into the computer system from her smartphone and observed the real-time results as a steer began eating pellets and burping. Its methane output was at first about 20 parts per million; that number shot up to a high of 194 parts per million when the steer belched. It also emitted carbon dioxide, oxygen, and hydrogen, according to data on the scientist’s phone.
Each steer in the group has been voluntarily entering the apparatus two to three times daily; over a feeding period of six months, this will allow scientists to accurately gauge enteric methane emissions for individual animals and for the group.
The broader goal is to determine how rations, the cattle microbiome, and genetics combine to affect cattle methane emissions – with an aim of influencing these factors to lower methane and increase cattle performance on feed. Ultimately, cattle might be identified and selectively bred based on their genetic proclivity to produce less methane, just as cattle are selected for their genetically inherited carcass traits and milk production.
“Everyone has to do their part,” Bryant said. “AgNext is an objective, third-party evaluator bringing science to our understanding of cattle performance and how the industry is doing. They’re looking at the whole picture.”
Photo at top: Irene Reis, a research associate with AgNext, assesses an experimental feed ration being investigated as a way to reduce methane from cattle production. Photo: Joe A. Mendoza / Colorado State University.
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