Genetically modified sheep will help reduce carbon footprint in farming with £2.9m project

The project will eventually demonstrate the impact of low-carbon sheep on whole farm carbon footprints with the aim to futher help English farmers make a positive contribution to UK agriculture’s journey towards net zero.

Called ‘Breed for CH4nge - Breeding Low Methane Sheep’, the scheme is part of Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme, and is being led by Innovis, a leading supplier of performance-recorded rams, who are also working with other progressive, performance-recording maternal sheep breeder groups including Sheep Improvement Group (SIG).

Phil Stocker, from the National Sheep Association (NSA) said: “NSA is delighted to be a partner in Breed for CH4nge and I see this as a highly significant R&D project to move Britain’s sheep industry forward in terms of productivity gains, alongside reducing methane emissions and improving carbon footprints.

"These outcomes are directly aligned to overcome some of the challenges that have been placed at the door of British agriculture in this post-CAP era. We have to move faster in terms of farming being a solution to climate change, and play our part in Britain’s 30 per cent methane reduction by 2030 targets agreed during COP 26.

"Through this work the consortium will identify ways to reduce our emissions but also ensure we do this in a way that maintains the wide range of sustainability traits inherent in many of our flocks. Importantly, the project is designed so that, in time, lessons will be able to be adopted by any breed and breeders and I see that as key to improving our genetics without weakening our genetic pool.”

The project will initially develop on-farm protocols and use new innovative tools and technologies including Portable Accumulation Chambers (PAC) to predict methane emissions from grazing sheep alongside measures of health, production and efficiency traits at the individual animal level.

Further measurements, including rumen size and microbiota, will improve understanding of the underlying biology and ensure that reductions in methane emissions positively contribute to sustainable genetic improvement of ewe productivity on UK grass and forage.

This comprehensive set of information will enable understanding of the genetic control of these characteristics and DNA sampling will allow relationships with the underlying genome of the sheep to be investigated. This will result in tools to compare the breeding value of sheep in the flocks, identifying breeding stock that will contribute to improving farm carbon footprint.

To widen the Breed for CH4nge project’s impact beyond the 45 flocks involved, plans are to roll out a wide-reaching communication programme with other sheep breeders and farmers throughout England.