Emission from Live stocks

When farming ruminant animals, the animals themselves produce the greatest amount of GHGs (up to 60%) through enteric fermentation in the rumen. Other components of the overall GHG emissions contribute roughly similar amounts, with the use of diesel and electricity being at the lower end (Casey and Holden, 2006). Globally, livestock is the most important anthropogenic source of methane emissions (USEPA, 2006a). Methane is a powerful GHG with a 20 times global warming potential as compared to that of CO2. [1]
 
In India, livestock rearing is an integral part of the culture, as well as for most of the agricultural activities. Although the livestock includes cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goat, pigs, horses, mules, donkeys, camels and poultry, the bovines and the small ruminants are the most dominant feature of Indian agrarian scenario, and the major source of methane emissions. Traditional cattle are raised for draught power for agricultural purposes, and cows and buffaloes for milk production. The cattle and buffaloes provide economic stability to farmers in the face of uncertainties associated with farm production in dry land/rain-fed cropped areas. Currently, most of the cattle are low-producing non-descript, indigenous breeds and only a small percentage (5-10 per cent) is of a higher breed (cross-bred and higher indigenous breeds).

Cattle and buffalo, which are the main milk-producing animals in the country, constitute 61 per cent of the total livestock population in India. The average milk produced by dairy cattle in India is 2.1 kg/day, whereas buffaloes produce 3.5 kg/day (MOA, 2004), which is much less than the milk produced by cattle in the developed countries (IPCC Revised Guidelines, 1996). This is mainly due to the poor quality of feed available to the cattle, specially domesticated in rural households. In spite of the low-energy value of feed intake, CH4 produced from this source in India is the highest amongst all agricultural sources, contributing about 55 per cent of the total CH4 emissions. Out of this, the dairy cattle and buffaloes contribute to about 40 per cent.
 

 It is clear that the indigenous varieties, whether cattle or buffalo have much lower emission coefficients than the cross-bred ones. This is mainly due to the difference in feed intake of the two. By taking a weighted average of emission factors produced for the various age categories of cattle and buffalo, the total CH4 emitted from India due to enteric fermentation is estimated to be 8,972 Gg. [2]