In the dairy industry, successfully implementing solutions that “kill two birds with one stone” requires innovation and usable data. Finding ways to reduce the carbon footprint on dairy cattle operations while also maintaining high milk production is just that kind of situation.

It is important to understand that dairy production is on a continuous path of growth. Some insightful data provided by the IFCN shows that global milk production is projected to increase by 35% between 2017 and 2030. This level of growth is promising for the industry but will also present many challenges and raise questions about our ability to provide more with fewer resources while adopting practices that are environmentally sound. To top everything off, all of this must be achieved while also continuing to increase transparency for consumers about how their milk is produced.

The main question is: Can we reduce the carbon footprint of milk while also improving our production and profitability?

Greenhouse gases have been a trending topic among consumers for several years, and this topic is now resonating more with dairy farmers across the world, as new regulations and initiatives are being presented. To achieve reduced emissions, we must look at ways to optimize production — including via nutritional solutions, which will play a very big role as we go forward.

Dairy producers can utilize nutritional solutions as tools for reducing methane emissions from dairy cows, but technologies that offer environmental benefits cannot compromise on animal performance, as doing so would mean requiring more animals to meet the growing demand for food. However, before looking to implement any of these solutions, dairy producers will need to measure their carbon footprint.

TOOL ONE: Alltech E-CO₂

To successfully reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, we must first know where these emissions come from. Analytical services, such as Alltech E-CO₂, identify and quantify these hotspots through accredited environmental assessments. Over the past 10 years and more than 10,000 assessments, Alltech E-CO₂ has found that the two largest sources of emissions on dairy farms are enteric emissions (i.e., methane from the rumen) and feed use. Together, these two sources contribute more than 60% of all emissions on dairy operations. These sources relate to rumen health and an animal’s ability to best maximize the feed it is being fed. By ensuring the production of a healthy and productive cow, we are helping operations improve their production efficiency while also enabling energy to be utilized for milk production and regular body maintenance, rather than being wasted by fighting health challenges. This type of information is critical for identifying targeted solutions that will enhance our methane mitigation strategies.

To successfully reduce a farm’s carbon footprint, we must look beyond one gas in one area and consider the balance of emissions across the entire farm. A lifecycle observation is one way of doing that, and it’s all about identifying opportunities to reduce waste and improve farm efficiency, which will translate to more money for the producer.

Learn more about Alltech E-CO₂ here.

Read on to learn more about two nutritional solutions that work to target the areas where there is room for improvement, as identified by Alltech E-CO₂.

TOOL TWO: Optigen^®

Optigen is a feed ingredient backed by years of robust research data that works to support production efficiency and sustainability. Optigen, a concentrated source of non-protein nitrogen, releases nitrogen into the rumen in a slow-release form. This provides a sustained release of ammonia in the rumen in sync with fermented carbohydrate digestion, thus allowing for efficient microbial protein synthesis in the rumen.  

In order to gather clear evidence that shows how we can use feed strategies to reduce our carbon footprint, the FAO developed a standard guideline for the environmental performance of feed additives in the livestock supply chain. These standards recommend the use of data from meta-analyses and life cycle analyses. Meta-analyses make it possible to combine data from years of multiple studies to arrive at an evidence-based conclusion by using comprehensive statistical procedures. Life-cycle analyses allow us to quantify the greenhouse gas emissions along the entire supply chain or in the production cycle of a particular product. Combining these two approaches demonstrates how feeding technologies can contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and/or better sustainability credentials.

Included here is an example of a meta-analysis of Optigen. The data from this meta-analysis indicate that, over the course of around two decades, research has shown that using Optigen is associated with a 23% reduction, on average, of plant protein sources in the diet. Soybean meal, specifically, can be reduced by about 21%, and an increase in feed efficiency of around 3% has also been documented. Additionally, diets that include Optigen and use reduced amounts of plant protein sources have been shown to improve nitrogen utilization efficiency by 4%, leading to a 14% reduction in the total carbon footprint of the diets of animals used in milk production.

 Read the full meta-analysis here.

TOOL 3: Yea-Sacc^®

There are some products on the market — like yeast cultures — that can help improve production efficiency while also reducing the carbon footprint of an operation. Yea-Sacc is a yeast culture based on the Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain of yeast. Yea-Sacc modifies rumen activity by supporting a consistent improvement in the growth and activity of lactic acid-utilizing bacteria, which helps stabilize the rumen pH. At the same time, it also works to improve the digestion and utilization of nutrients. Thanks to these types of improvements, cows can absorb more nutrients for higher milk production.

Utilizing a meta-analysis approach once again, a collection of 31 studies has shown that feeding Yea-Sacc to dairy cows can lead to an increased milk yield of 1 kg/head/day, on average, and can reduce the carbon footprint and nitrogen emission intensity by around 3% and 5.4%, respectively. These numbers demonstrate that it is possible for milk production efficiency to increase and for the carbon footprint and nitrogen excretion intensity to decrease simultaneously.

Explore the additional benefits of Yea-Sacc here.

At the beginning of this blog, we posed a question: Can we reduce the carbon footprint of milk while also improving our production and profitability? With proven tools like the ones outlined here, the answer to that question is yes: It is possible to reduce the carbon footprint of dairy production and to improve our economic returns and performance at the same time. Based on the data compiled in various meta-analyses, it is clear that there are feeding solutions on the market that farmers can use to reduce their emissions and increase their productivity and profitability in conjunction with nutritional strategies that will help improve production efficiency in dairy systems.

Alltech Canada’s journey began in 1988 with the opening of our first office in Guelph, Ontario. Over the years, we have expanded our footprint to better serve farmers and agribusinesses across the country. Today, our team operates from four key locations: Guelph, Ontario; Winnipeg, Manitoba, Calgary, Alberta, and St-Hyacinthe, Quebec.

We are proud to partner with the Canadian agriculture industry from coast to coast, delivering local expertise, world-class technical support, and cutting-edge nutritional innovations. Our dedicated team members, located across Canada, work tirelessly to help you maximize efficiency, enhance sustainability, and drive profitability in your operations.

At Alltech Canada, our commitment to advancing agriculture remains at the heart of everything we do, empowering producers to succeed today and build a stronger tomorrow.

At the heart of Alltech is an entrepreneurial journey.

In the 1970s, our founder, Dr. Pearse Lyons, immigrated to the United States with a dream: to sustain our planet and all things living on it. As an Irish scientist, he saw an opportunity to apply his yeast fermentation expertise to animal nutrition challenges, and his dream became a reality when he founded Alltech in 1980 with just $10,000.

Today, a global team of more than 6,000 people around the world shares this vision of sustaining and nourishing the world’s plants, animals and people.

We deliver on this vision by improving plant, feed and food quality through nutrition and scientific innovation, particularly yeast-based technology. Our team is fully committed to helping plants and animals achieve their full potential while supporting producers in greater efficiency, profitability and sustainability.

Starting with the soil

We provide natural-based products and solutions to agronomic and horticultural challenges facing producers across the globe, addressing the production of citrus, silage and everything in between.At Alltech Crop Science, growth is natural with us.

Our goal is to seamlessly bridge the gap between science and sustainability. By sharing our expertise, providing constant technical support and exploring the intricacies of each region we serve, we are not only pursuing greater productivity, profitability and sustainability for every crop — we are working alongside producers and agronomists to build the future of agriculture.

Focusing on the feed…

Through our innovative study of nutrigenomics, our nutritional technologies help animals maximize the nutrients in their feed for optimal well-being and performance.

We work with producers across the globe to address the animal nutrition issues most important to them, including:

• Feed efficiency
• Antibiotic-free production
• Food enrichment
• Management of mycotoxins
• Gut health
• Protein
• Enzymes
• Minerals

...and the farm

Alltech’s support goes beyond nutrition. We partner with producers to increase their efficiency, productivity and profitability through analytical services, including:

• Alltech IFM to analyze the feed ration
• Alltech 37+ to quantify mycotoxin risk
• Alltech E-CO₂ to assess on-farm efficiency and sustainability

Food

We bring traceability, quality and improved nutrition to the table.

As a family company, we understand the consumer’s desire to ensure that their family’s meals are as safe and nutritious as possible. From our innovative use of organic minerals to our work in crop science, we focus on improving nutrient value throughout the food chain.

Our guiding principle

In all of these endeavors, we are guided by our ACE principle, our promise that in doing business we have a positive impact on the Animal, Consumer and Environment.

Producers now have access to approved verification programs, which can enhance their transparency, traceability and profitability.

Alltech is accredited by IMI Global, a division of Where Food Comes From, Inc., and its new “Feed Verified” program.

Feed Verified is a real-time resource for producers, feed companies and food brands to reduce risk and clearly confirm a feed product meets the necessary requirements for specific verification and certification programs.

As the industry’s first Feed Verified company, Alltech has taken a major step to certify a wide range of technologies. The approved product list addresses challenges such as gut health, mycotoxin management, feed efficiency, protein management, mineral management and overall health and performance.

Who is IMI Global?

IMI Global is a division of Where Food Comes From, Inc., the number one provider of certification and verification services to the livestock industry. IMI Global enables producers, feeders, growers, packers and processors to meet the ever-changing needs of consumers, both sustainably and with full traceability.

IMI Global acts as the certifying or verifying body, conducting the necessary audits to ensure production meets the needs of each specific program.

In many instances, approval for a specific claim is required to access certain domestic or international marketplaces, such as the Non-hormone Treated Cattle (NHTC) requirement for all beef exported to the European Union. Similarly, in order to validate packaging claims and meet unique brand labeling requirements, IMI Global ensures production practices and feed ingredients meet the standards required by those programs.

With the continued rise of feed ingredient costs, there is increasing pressure to be as efficient as possible in animal diet formulations. 

Alltech True Check™ is a flexible analysis designed to simulate the digestive systems of poultry and swine, providing a prediction of nutrient release from the feed. It allows us to quantify the benefits of adding enzymes and determine the best enzymes for individual feeds. This means we can help formulate feeds that will have the most benefit for the animal while reducing inputs and environmental impact. 

How does Alltech True Check work? 

Alltech True Check stimulates digestion using a system that replicates each stage of the digestion process. The feed is ground and diluted, then goes through different phases in which enzymes matching endogenous production, pH, temperature and time are carefully adjusted to mimic the crop, gizzard and small intestine of a chicken, or the stomach and small intestine of a pig. After this process, the samples are analyzed for phosphate, reducing sugars and alpha amino nitrogen.  

How can the analysis help optimize feed formulation? 

Analysis of free phosphates demonstrates the conversion of phytic acid into a digestible form. A higher free phosphate level indicates more phosphorus available to the animal. The use of enzymes to increase phytic acid hydrolysis reduces the need to add mineral sources of phosphorus to the diet and minimizes excretion of unabsorbed phosphorus into the environment.  

Animal feed includes fiber, which is largely composed of non-starch polysaccharides found in plant cell walls, such as cellulose, hemicellulose and pectin. Non-starch polysaccharides are composed of sugars but are not easily digested by monogastric animals. Enzymes can be used to help convert the longer polysaccharides into digestible sugars, measured as reducing sugars, allowing increased energy availability to the animal. 

Free amino nitrogen analyzes the amount of protein being converted into digestible free amino acids. Increasing protein release from feeds allows for lower crude protein formulation in diets. Reducing dietary crude protein is crucial to reduce excretion of nitrogen into the environment and can also improve animal health. 

By simulating the digestive process in the lab, Alltech True Check provides a fast, effective screening method for novel diet formulations and enzyme additions. Use of Alltech True Check can reduce wasted nutrients, increasing production efficiency while also minimizing the environmental impact of animal production.

Why the Alltech^® In Vitro Fermentation Model?

The Alltech^®In Vitro Fermentation Model (IFM) is a support tool for nutritionists to evaluate and troubleshoot rations in order to maximize feed efficiency and reduce ever-rising feed costs. 

Nutritionists rely on nutritional models and chemical feed characteristics to formulate diets. However, this information is static and does not provide a complete evaluation of nutrient availability. Alltech IFM is a dynamic diagnostic tool that measures the digestion of feed in the rumen in real time. This allows us to get a comprehensive view of feed digestion as opposed to a snapshot from a single point in time.    

What is Alltech IFM?

Alltech IFM simulates rumen fermentation to evaluate the energy and protein availability of feeds. This technique is based on measuring gas production from microbial digestion as a proxy for real-time digestion. Since we continuously measure gas production, we are able to separate the energy contribution of feed ingredients by the rate of digestion. We can describe how much and at what rate carbohydrates from quickly degrading sources (e.g., starches and sugars) and slowly degrading sources (e.g., fiber) are contributing to the balance of the ration. We also measure microbial biomass to indicate protein availability and protein-to-energy balance in the ration. Alltech IFM analysis also includes a basic wet chemistry to provide a complete picture of the feed sample.

How does it work?

Feed samples are incubated using rumen fluid and a buffer system to mimic natural rumen fermentation in the animal. As digestion progresses, volumes of fermentation gases, such as methane and carbon dioxide, are continuously monitored using an automated system.

• Alltech IFM measures gas production, taking into account all nutrients fermented (solubles and insolubles). Total gas production is separated into quickly and slowly fermenting carbohydrates using mathematical equations.
• Estimates of rates of degradation of the different carbohydrate fractions provide additional information on the nutritive value of the feed.
• Measurement of fermentation byproducts includes:

• Yield of microbial biomass (i.e., source of metabolizable protein to the animal).
• Volatile fatty acid profile (i.e., source of energy to the animal).
• Total gas production.
• In vitro dry matter digestibility.

Alltech IFM applications:

• Nutritional tool to optimize ruminal function, ruminal starch availability and fiber digestion in the rumen, and protein balance.
• Single test provides more accurate, informed recommendations to optimize feed in a relatively short period of time and at low cost.
• Troubleshoot potential problems and develop supplementation strategies to optimize feed efficiency and profitability, which are tailored to the customer’s feeding programs.
• Estimates of gas production can help identify total mixed rations that are less efficient and that produce excessive gas per unit of dry matter digested.  Ingredient and chemical composition are evaluated in conjunction with gas pool sizes to identify sources of potential problems.

Frequently asked questions:

• What types of samples do you recommend submitting?
  • We focus on total mixed rations in order to characterize what the animal is eating. The individual ingredients included in a total mixed ration will have associative effects on the digestion of the ration as a whole that cannot be determined based on individual analysis. However, analyzing individual ingredients can be useful in the case of forages, especially corn silage and hay. Alltech IFM results will give you the information to evaluate the forage quality, for example, if you need to choose between multiple bunkers of corn silage or decide whether to buy a lot of hay.
• What is the effect of particle size on Alltech IFM results?
  • On receipt of the feed sample in the lab, we dry and grind the sample to prepare it for analysis. This provides us with a consistent sample. It also removes the effect of particle size from the results. However, we test the potential digestibility of the nutrients in the ration and can determine if digestibility issues are a function of chemical or physical form. If the ration is potentially digestible based on Alltech IFM results but you are seeing undigested feed in feces, reducing the particle size of the feed may be the solution. If the potential digestibility of the ration is low due to the chemical makeup of the ration (e.g., due to resistant starch), particle size is likely not the culprit and feed additives such as enzymes or live yeast may provide the solution.
• How will the source of rumen fluid affect Alltech IFM results?
  • We obtain rumen fluid from a fistulated lactating Holstein that is fed a high-producing lactation ration (corn silage, corn grain, soybean meal). While this cow has a different microbial population that your customers’ cows, the results obtained will be applicable to any herd. We maintain standard operating procedures and do quality control for every Alltech IFM test we conduct. The reference ranges we have developed in our lab allow us to compare rations and make recommendations based on relative comparisons that will be applicable across rations.
• Can samples be frozen?
  • If you cannot ship samples right away, you can store them in the refrigerator or freezer. 
• How much sample should be sent?
  • Collect enough total mixed ration sample to fill a 1-gallon plastic bag (about 2 pounds per 1 kilogram). 

The Alltech^®  Protein Management program provides a source of consistent, high-quality protein for your animals, getting them off to the right start and keeping production on track to optimize performance.

Adding Alltech’s protein solutions to your feed can:

• Support gut development.
• Promote uniformity.
• Maximize performance.
• Provide a source of high-quality protein.
• Enhance fiber digestion.
• Promote weight gain.
• Optimize rumen efficiency.
• Support gastrointestinal development.
• Maximize feed intake.
• Optimize uniformity.

Your livestock depend on you. Performance depends on the right mineral.

Do it right with the Alltech^® Mineral Management program for better absorption, less waste and optimum health.

Mineral management is more than just preventing deficiencies. 

Incorrect mineral supplementation can have major consequences on animal health and productivity. Traditional methods of supplementation have used inorganic minerals. However, inorganic minerals are poorly absorbed by the animal. This has caused a shift to organic mineral supplementation in many markets.

Break with tradition and feed your animals the modern way.

Alltech has proven that organic trace minerals in the form of Bioplex^® and Sel-Plex^® can be included at significantly lower levels while improving animal performance. This optimizes animal mineral requirements and reduces negative environmental impacts. We call this innovation Alltech’s Total Replacement Technology™ (TRT).

The Alltech Mineral Management program guarantees organic minerals that are better absorbed, stored and utilized by the animal. This meets the higher nutrient needs of modern livestock for growth, reproductive performance and animal health.

Trace mineral supplementation strategies for optimized poultry production

Explore the impact of different mineral sources on bird health, performance, and environmental sustainability, highlighting the advantages of organic trace minerals over inorganic alternatives. By selecting the right supplementation strategy, producers can improve efficiency, support animal well-being, and minimize mineral waste. Read the full article here.

Want to deepen your understanding of selenium sources? Download our whitepaper, Organic selenium: A comparison of form, source, and function, to explore the key differences and make more informed decisions for your business.

The Alltech^® Gut Health Management program is essential to building a foundation for lifelong animal performance and producer profitability.

Our gut health technologies are backed by extensive research, including more than 730 trials. As antibiotic regulations tighten globally, we are positioned to provide field-proven solutions for the intestinal integrity and overall well-being of animals.

The Alltech Gut Health Management program focuses on:

• Getting the most from feed: Maximizing feed utilization, growth and efficiency.
• Building immune function: Maintaining good gut health and supporting weight gain.
• The right start: Promoting beneficial bacteria, enhancing gut development and supporting early growth and performance.