Agriculture and food sectors seek to cut emissions
Agencies in the agriculture and livestock sectors have accelerated efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in the animal-feed supply chain in a bid to enable Thai farmers and livestock producers to cope with trade barriers.
Agriculture and food sectors are considered to be among the ranks of greenhouse gas emitters, having emitted around 54 billion tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent, or one-third of global emissions.
Of that amount, 7.2 billion tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent of greenhouse gas were emitted from the livestock sector, especially animal-feed production and livestock digestion.
In Thailand, the agriculture sector has been named the second-highest greenhouse gas emitter following the energy and transport sector, of which 51% and 21.46% were emitted from rice cultivation and livestock sectors respectively.
Livestock products and animal feed, exports of which to the EU and US are worth more than 70 billion baht annually, emit a large amount of greenhouse gas.
Pornsilp Patcharintanakul, president of the Thai Feed Mill Association, told Thansettakij newspaper on Tuesday that the Thai livestock and animal-feed industries are facing challenges regarding insufficient emission data and lack of readiness to cope with carbon-reduction regulations.
He warned that such producers would face rising production costs if they are unable to comply with regulations. Thailand could lose an opportunity to export tons of chicken to the European Union, he pointed out.
“Over the past five to six years, the association has promoted carbon measurement standards in animal feed, especially domestically cultivated corn amounting to 4 million tons annually,” he said, adding that carbon reduction would become a hot issue when exporting products abroad.
Pornsilp said the association has collaborated with King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi on a project to reduce greenhouse gas emission in the Thai livestock production chain in a bid to enable the country to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040.
Committees have been established to supervise carbon reduction on four products – animal-feed corn, fish meal, beef, and cow milk – he added.
Amnat Chidthaisong, director of the university’s Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment, said the institution has kicked off carbon measurement on animal-feed corn at 10 plantations in Chainat and Lopburi provinces.
The measurement found that six good-agriculture-practice (GAP) plantations emitted 0.01-0.05 kilogram of carbon-dioxide equivalent per crop, while four non-GAP plantations emitted 0.04-0.06 kilogram of carbon-dioxide equivalent per crop, he explained.
He said the university will study the result by comparing it with other research before considering means of improving animal-feed corn production to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Apart from animal-feed corn, the university will conduct measurements on rice and cassava, he added.
