A VAST 200-page CSIRO report released this week on methane and carbon reduction in agriculture suggests that customer pull-through, lower cost in feed additives and finding delivery solutions for extensive grazing will be necessary for comprehensive uptake across livestock industries.

The Priorities for Low Emissions Agricultural Solutions Investment report, commissioned by DAFF, looks at current and emerging tools to reduce on-farm greenhouse gas emissions being generated by Australian ag, and what is needed to deliver practical impact.

The national assessment looked at more than 80 emissions-reduction technologies across six sectors: red meat and sheep, dairy, cropping, horticulture, pigs and poultry.

It found there is a growing suite of promising options already available to reduce on-farm emissions and further opportunities for practical solutions for Australian producers. Technologies for the livestock sector span specific interventions such as feed supplements to emerging technologies like anti-methanogenic livestock vaccines.

However the technical performance of the emissions reduction options alone was a poor predictor of whether farmers and graziers were likely to adopt a technology and that cost, return on investment, ease of use, delivery, trusted data and market value all shaped uptake significantly.

Just some of the report’s many messages included:

Delivery, not efficacy, is the dominant scaling barrier for enteric methane mitigation. Across the red meat and sheep portfolio, the principal constraint on scaling enteric emissions reduction technologies was not biological efficacy, but how reliably, cheaply, and credibly they can be delivered and measured in extensive grazing systems. Without solutions to delivery and monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV), even highly effective technologies would remain confined to niche or intensive contexts, it warned.

Demand-side signals are as important as supply-side R&D. Without procurement, contracting, or finance structures that reward performance of low-emissions agriculture, many technologies will remain stuck, despite technical readiness due to low on-farm return on investment or high risk in investing initial capital, the report found.

The report places particular weight on sector-specific feasibility, delivery constraints, technology stacking, and the sequencing of action over time. It examines not only what technologies could reduce emissions, but what can plausibly be delivered, scaled and sustained, and under what conditions.

“There is no single technology that will deliver lower-emissions agriculture across Australia’s diverse farming systems”, said joint lead author of the report, Dr Peat Leith, a team leader in CSIRO’s Agriculture and Food research unit.

“What this report shows is that we have a growing range of promising options, but different combinations will be needed for different industries and production systems.”

Dr Leith said the report outlines the opportunity to build the measurement systems, incentives, capability and coordination needed to turn that potential into real-world impact.

“What this looks like differs from one sector to the next, but there are common patterns and priorities, and there is real opportunity for agriculture to work across industries and with the energy sector to make significant strides,” he said.

CSIRO’s Dr Michael Battaglia, joint lead author of the report, said research has created a growing supply of potential solutions.

“The next challenge is to make sure those solutions are practical, commercially attractive and valued by the markets they serve, so there is a reason for producers to adopt them,” Dr Battaglia said.

“For producers, reducing emissions cannot be separated from running productive and profitable farming businesses. The strongest pathways are those that bring those objectives together.”

He said to achieve substantially lower emissions production, the sector would likely need combinations, or “stacks”, of technologies and practices suited to particular farming systems.

Close to 80 technologies were evaluated against multiple criteria, including feasible abatement potential, breadth of application, co-benefits, barriers and knowledge gaps, stacking potential, technology and commercial readiness, and system fit.

The report steps through a series of suggested ‘best actions’ over three periods (now to 2030, 2030-2035 and post 2035), suggesting the current period to 2030 will focus on limited national abatement (that will come later in the cycle), but substantial system readiness and risk reduction.

Over time, achieving national emissions goals will increasingly depend on direct emissions reduction within production systems, the report said. Technologies, in some cases, may be deployed to provide improvement in emissions intensity rather than to create absolute emissions reduction.

The report warned that emissions pressures on agriculture were intensifying.

“As the rest of the economy reduces emissions, agriculture’s relative share of national emissions will rise. Markets, financiers and supply chains are moving faster than on-farm capability, driven by Scope 3 reporting, climate disclosure and procurement requirements. This creates a risk of fragmented, poorly aligned demand and opportunity if adoption pathways are not credibly supported.”

Critically, technological availability had not translated into widespread adoption, the report found.

“Many emissions-reduction options offer weak private returns, impose management complexity, or depend on immature delivery, regulatory or measurement systems to verify their efficacy. Experience to date shows that technology readiness alone is a poor predictor of adoption, scaling and impact.”

Strategic insights

Among a series of strategic insights raised, the report found:

• Early abatement will be modest, but enabling value is high In the near-term, the greatest returns come from deploying existing ‘win-win’ technologies, building system capacity and maturing next generation technologies, rather than maximising immediate abatement.
• Stacking matters. Meaningful on-farm reductions will rarely come from a single intervention. Instead, there is a need for integrated technology ‘stacks’ (combined technologies and practices) tailored to enterprise and regional characteristics.
• Demand-side signals are as important as supply-side R&D.
• Sequencing reduces risk: Too-early promotion of technologies that are not proven or have a limited value proposition can undermine not only technology scaling but organisations, programs and individuals that promote it.
• Coordination is critical to progress. Emissions reduction will be accelerated by aligning action across research, policy, markets, advisory services and supply chains. Strengthening direction-setting, coordination, learning and legitimacy across the innovation system is essential to convert technological potential into durable, sector-wide outcomes.

For many technologies discussed in the report, little data was yet available about aspects of efficacy, adoptability, or financial and other costs, risks and benefits, the report said.

Beef, lamb and wool

In the chapter covering red meat and wool (effectively cattle and sheep), the emissions reduction technologies reviewed spanned a full spectrum from research and early development through to scaling-ready commercial options.

“However, portfolio coverage does not equate to the system’s ability to deploy them at scale. Across most technologies, industry-wide uptake remains low, with constraints arising less from technical feasibility than from system fit, delivery mechanisms, economics, and assurance,” the report said.

“In extensive grazing systems in particular, system-level enablers, including incentives, access to finance, regulatory clarity, and supply-chain alignment, are often more limiting than technology performance itself.”

Of 19 methane reducing technologies for livestock production under various stages of technical maturity (research phase through to scaling-ready), only two were given a ‘high’ classification for ag sector abatement potential over the next ten years – those being selective breeding for low methane and an anti-methanogen vaccine.

Scaling ready options

The portfolio contains a small set of ‘scaling-ready’ options that can expand under current settings with targeted extension and decision support.

“For many of these, however, the potential abatement remains uncertain; that is, we know they work, but there remains some uncertainty about how effective they will be when deployed and/or there remains uncertainty about the extent to which they are deployable across enterprise contexts,” the report said.

Some of the most prospective technologies with high breadth of application and high potential abatement (such as vaccines) remain in early-stage development. There is a broad set of scaling-constrained and scaling-limited due to delivery constraints, weak return on investment, or unresolved assurance and MRV requirements. For extensive systems, the limiting constraint was often delivery and transaction cost rather than technical efficacy.

ROI constraints affected many technologies, the report found.

“Many red meat and sheep options remain scaling-limited or development-stage, rather than purely scaling-constrained. While some technologies (e.g. herd management, pasture-based phytochemicals, selective breeding) show positive or near-neutral ROI, most enteric methane inhibitors (e.g. asparagopsis, garlic/citrus extracts) and manure options do not pay for themselves under current extensive grazing economics without premiums, insetting, procurement, energy revenue, or carbon crediting.”

The issue was less ‘technology immaturity’ and more misalignment between costs, delivery feasibility, and value capture.

System fit and regional delivery are decisive

Technology performance and feasibility were highly contingent on production system (extensive grazing vs confined or semi-confined systems), regional climate, and seasonality, the report said.

For red meat and sheep, where most emissions occur in extensive pasture systems, delivery constraints dominate outcomes. Stacking and timing remain critical, particularly where nitrogen-related emissions or seasonal feed quality interact with enteric mitigation, but the primary constraint is physical delivery to grazing animals, not agronomic optimisation as in dairy.

No single universally scalable mitigation option exists today: Red meat and sheep systems do not have a small set of universally scalable technologies, the report said.

The most broadly applicable options at present were selective breeding for low methane and herd management practices, both of which together offer cumulative, system-wide benefits but deliver gradual emissions reductions. Pasture-based phytochemical strategies were promising and broadly applicable, but still depended on agronomic support and regional suitability. Most feed-based enteric inhibitors are not universally scalable under current grazing conditions.

Adoption pathways for scaling-limited and scaling-constrained options could be assisted by market and system activation: Several technologies have high TRL and reasonable technical performance, but remain stuck in pilot or trial phases because ROI is weak and assurance and delivery costs add friction.

“For red meat and sheep, market creation (premiums, insetting, procurement are pre-conditions for scale, particularly in extensive systems where per-animal margins are thin.”

Overcoming scaling constraints: The first step was to unlock scaling‑ready technologies, the report said. In red meat and sheep systems, commercial-ready options were primarily herd management and some pasture‑based phytochemical strategies, rather than feed‑based enteric inhibitors.

These options are mainly held back by knowledge, capability and confidence constraints rather than technology readiness.

The remaining portfolio of red meat and sheep technologies highlighted a familiar but more acute bottleneck than in dairy: solutions with high technical potential but weak system fit or delivery feasibility in extensive grazing systems.

This included asparagopsis and other high‑efficacy inhibitors, nitrate supplementation, garlic/citrus extracts, and manure methane options in intensive nodes. In these cases, two levers are decisive:

Monitoring, reporting and verification

Red meat and sheep systems require MRV that is credible, low-cost, and workable at herd or flock scale. Without MRV, incentives could not be directed and markets cannot operate efficiently to support scaling, the report said.

“In extensive grazing systems, enteric methane mitigation requires sampling-based, model-informed, herd-level approaches that are acceptable to processors, insetting arrangements, and emerging carbon frameworks. High-precision, individual-animal measurement is neither feasible nor necessary for scaling.”

Among the scaling-ready options discussed:

• Feed-based enteric inhibitors such as 3-NOP are also classified as scaling-ready, but only in confined or semi-confined systems where consistent delivery and dosing control are feasible. Their contribution across extensive grazing systems is expected to remain limited due to delivery constraints, economics, and low confidence in scalable application under grazing conditions.
• Selective breeding (as a cumulative, system-wide strategy), is mainstreamed as a livestock improvement mechanism, and while evidence that methane traits are heritable exist, there is still development trialling work to do for a commercially deployable Australian methane-specific breeding pathway with sufficiently accurate EBVs/GEBVs integrated into mainstream selection indexes.

Among Scaling Limited options: Technologies such as nitrate supplementation, garlic and citrus extracts, lipid supplementation, and manure methane options in intensive nodes are technically mature and capable of positive returns in specific contexts, but face high barriers to broader adoption due to delivery risks, safety requirements, system incompatibility, limited breadth of application, and constrained stacking potential.

For these options, adoption is unlikely to extend beyond bounded geographies or production systems without targeted intervention to remove specific barriers, including refined protocols, regulatory guidance, and practical system integration.

“Even with intervention, these technologies should be treated as complementary, locally applicable contributions rather than core sector-wide pathways,” the report said.

Among Development trialling technologies: Technologies such as asparagopsis and other high-efficacy enteric inhibitors, along with selective breeding approaches focused on methane trait proxies and index integration, have high technical potential but require further effort to transition from trials into routine, investable practice.

“The dominant constraints at this stage are system fit, delivery in grazing systems, regulatory and assurance requirements, and the absence of a clear pathway to claimable abatement, rather than efficacy per se. Increasing adoption depends on coordinated farm-scale demonstration across regions, refinement of delivery mechanisms, assurance and regulatory co-design, commercialisation support, and shared infrastructure (e.g. data, baselines, monitoring tools) to reduce friction and build trust among adopters.”

Research/foundational: Vaccines, synthetic and second-generation haloforms, and early-life rumen programming remain longer-horizon options at the research and early development stages. These approaches required sustained R&D investment, early attention to safety, durability, delivery protocols, regulatory pathways, and social licence, and continued engagement with international research efforts.

Such technologies should be viewed as preserving future option value rather than contributing materially to near-term emissions reduction targets.

Socio-cultural interactions

As in many sub-sectors, there was a risk that new expectations placed on producers through regulation or markets without equitable cost‑sharing or clear value propositions could lead to resistance and disengagement in this field.

“This risk is heightened for feed additives and animal interventions that attract public scrutiny. Successful scaling depends on trusted advisers, transparent communication about benefits and risks, and assurance frameworks that address safety, residues and animal welfare alongside emissions outcomes. High (and appropriate) regulatory hurdles for demonstration of safety can impose significant scaling delays.”

Cross-sectoral transformation effects. Shifts in retail, consumer and export market requirements may unlock premiums for low‑emissions red meat and sheep products, particularly where claims are simple, credible and comparable, the report found. Conversely, if certain additives or practices become implicit or explicit conditions of market access, feed supply chains, delivery logistics, and advisory systems will need to scale rapidly to avoid creating bottlenecks or inequities between regions and production systems.

Investment so far

The report said of the $93 million attributable to investment identified within the sample of red meat and sheep emissions-reduction projects, the largest identified investments so far are in selective breeding for low methane ($38.5 million) and pasture-based phytochemical strategies ($21.6 million).

A second tier covers enteric methane inhibitors, including 3-NOP ($8.9 million) and asparagopsis and related seaweed products ($7.4 million), together with dietary phytochemical extracts ($6.1 million) and second-generation haloforms ($3.9 million).

For several other categories, including herd management, nitrate supplementation, garlic and citrus extracts, vaccines and some infrastructure-based options, little or no investment was identifiable from the available project descriptions.

MLA and other peak bodies have coordinated substantial programs over emissions reduction over time, the report noted.

RERLP (2009–2012) and NLMP (2012–2015) supported coordinated research addressing knowledge gaps around prospective products and measurement approaches across different production systems. Later initiatives, including MLA’s CN30 program and MERiL, extended this work with greater attention to feasibility and scaling constraints.

“Coordination is also occurring through value-chain operators and aggregators working with supplier networks to support lower-emissions production, including Woolworths’ SeaFeed initiative, the Coles Nature Fund, and McDonald’s supply-chain actions.

“These activities may perform coordination, market activation and diffusion functions that are not visible in project-level RD&E coding,” the report said.

Click this link to access the full report