Jo Palmer,Minister for Primary Industries and Water
The Tasmanian Liberal Government is investing over $540,000 in a significant new project that aims to reduce livestock emissions while boosting productivity.
Sea Forest is a Tasmanian company that is developing the culture, harvest and commercialisation of Asparagopsis, an Australian native seaweed that has the ability to reduce methane emissions in cattle by up to 98 per cent.
With funding announced today, the project will seek to develop a commercial formulation for a seaweed-based feed supplement that can be fed to cattle and sheep to reduce their methane emissions and deliver productivity gains.
Industry is co-investing over $670,000 in the project which will involve on-farm trials of different Asparagopsis pellet formulations.
This is the fourth project being funded under the Tasmanian Government's $3 million Agricultural Development Fund. The first three successful projects were:
- Re-use and recycling of hydroponic substrate to enable the growth of high-value agricultural production in Tasmania;
- Optimising calf raising for dairy beef production in Tasmania; and
- Development of the hoverfly, Eristalis tenax, as a complementary managed pollinator for Tasmanian cropping systems.
The Agricultural Development Fund supports projects that demonstrate active partnerships with industry that have a clear pathway to deliver research outcomes for the State's farmers and contribute to sustainable growth and jobs in agriculture.
Our Government has a target to sustainably grow Tasmanian agriculture to $10 billion by 2050, and we are well on track to achieving our target.
In March we funded a related research project, delivered by the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, which received $487,000 for "On-farm adoption of low emissions feed technologies for improved profitability of the Tasmanian livestock sector".
We are working to further reduce the state's greenhouse gas emissions across key sectors, including agriculture, to achieve our goal of net zero emissions from 2030.
Finding practical, cost-effective ways to reduce methane emissions from cattle and sheep, and enhance livestock productivity, will be one of the keys to achieving net zero emissions target, and our 2050 vision for agriculture.
Tasmania is the only Australian state to have achieved net zero emissions and in 2020 we succeeded in maintaining that status for the seventh year in a row.
