Anyone familiar with the good-gut claims the fermented tea product kombucha makes will appreciate the trademark Kowbucha Fonterra has registered for its fermented culture research.
Its research and development head Mark Piper said the name reflects the co-op’s history of dairy fermentation and culture research that is applied in so many of its cultured products like cheeses and yoghurts. The brand also reflects how the cows providing Fonterra’s raw material are due to have a good-gut experience, all going well.
“We are in quite a unique position globally in that we produce all our own cultures for our products whereas most companies buy in the cultures they use. This means we have a frozen back catalogue of dairy cultures, numbering in the thousands, that is one of the largest in the world.”
The co-op also has a history of adopting cultures to improve human health, including a probiotic that aids childhood eczema and another that improves intestinal health.
That has prompted Fonterra scientists to cast their eyes over those stored cultures to see if they can be applied to the dairy rumen, modifying its bacteria and helping reduce methane emissions.
Researchers are combining the fermentation expertise in partnership with the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium and AgResearch’s world-class rumen research.
AgResearch’s own fermented culture work has already been applied to dairy products, improving sensory attributes and quality for targeted export markets.
While the research world abounds with silver-bullet solutions to ruminant methane production on closer interrogation two key attributes are often missing.
They are the ability to have no negative effect on their animal hosts or on humans when the milk is consumed.
“For us that is of utmost priority and anything that can’t be proved to tick those boxes simply does not get advanced.”
While the research is still in its early stages the team is confident some of the hundreds of fermentations to be tested will be worth pursuing.
“There are early indications some are proving promising.”
Next stage research involves working closely with AgResearch and the consortium, using their livestock research capacity to try selected fermentations in dairy cows.
“Ideally, in 18 months’ time we would want to be able to categorise what is a go and what is a no-go,” Piper said.
The degree of methane reduction the fermentations might be capable of achieving will be critical and incremental amounts might not be sufficient to make them worth pursuing.
However, Piper also sees future farmers working with a tool-box of solutions that might include fermentation and acknowledges the days of looking for a silver-bullet solution are numbered.
“Some may work in feedlot situations, some in pasture. It is likely farmers will have multiple tools that working together will add up to a significant reduction.”
New Zealand accounts for 0.16% of global emissions with its agriculture only 0.08% of that.
NZ dairy emissions per litre of milk are less than a third of the world dairy emissions average.
Piper points to the 20% reduction per litre of milk already achieved by NZ cows in the past three decades.
Early research indicates the use of fermentations as methane inhibitors might also boost protein output from cows.
“If she is not producing as much methane she would be retaining energy that can be channelled to protein production. There is an expectation their yield could go up,” he said.
