In New Zealand, burping and farting are no laughing matter. Such behavior by sheep and cattle, mind you accounts for 32 percent of the island nation’s greenhouse gases emissions. That’s because the animals release methane, a main contributor of global warming, as part of their normal digestive process. For years now, Kiwi scientists have been investigating ways to reduce the methane the livestock produce to return the country’s emissions to 1990 levels by 2013 as part of commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. Recently, they got a little closer.

In what they say is a world first, scientists from the government-owned AgResearch institute announced in June that they had mapped the genetic sequence of a microbe responsible for producing methane from the fermentation vat or “rumen” of sheep and cattle. Fermentation is a key part of digestion for ruminants as it enables the animal to break down sturdy grasses and other roughage into usable nutrients. Called Methanobrevibacter Ruminantium, the methanogen could lead scientists to an approach for down-regulating methane activity, says Mark Aspin, manager of the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium, which was set up to tackle the emissions problem.

“The mapping sets up the ability for us to be more specific in targeting the methane production while affecting less of the fermentation,” says Aspin, who is a research and development official with Meat & Wool New Zealand, a livestock producer association. If anything, researchers are keen to increase the production of meat and wool and are wary of taking steps that, while curbing methane, would decrease livestock productivity. “The microorganisms operate in a balanced manner and if you take out one of the players, you need to find a new equilibrium that is the challenge we have,” he says.

Researchers are looking at several different delivery mechanisms for new genes and proteins that could target and curb methane production including vaccine, feed, drench, as well as new breeding practices. According to Aspin, Australian scientists in the 1990s said they had developed a methane-fighting vaccine that reduced the gas by 9 percent, but Aspin says New Zealand scientists didn’t have similar luck when they tried it in their country. “To create a vaccine for an organism that lives in the rumen is very demanding,” says Aspin. Developing a special feed additive is tricky, too, because New Zealand’s livestock industry relies on extensive grazing. Over its 104,454 square miles (about the size of Colorado), New Zealand has about 40 million sheep, or 10 for every inhabitant. There are another 10 million cattle. Asking farmers to feed out a methane-suppressant could be very costly.

“Sequencing the methanogen is one of the basic research steps we had to go through, but trying to change the way ruminant animals have evolved is not an easy task,” says Gerald Rys, senior scientist with the country’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. Armed with a $14-million war chest from government and industry sources, the consortium is eager to find a solution, as it’s mindful that the problem is bigger than just New Zealand. There are more than 1 billion domestic farm animals in the world. “If we can win the worldwide race to find a practical, cost-effective solution for reducing agricultural emissions, we can not only help reduce our Kyoto Protocol liabilities,” says Mark Leslie, the consortium’s chairman, “but also commercialize and export the technology to the world as well."

Aspin reckons it may take five years to find a fix, and another five after that to roll it out in an effective and cost-efficient manner. The stakes are high, not just because of the potential emissions curbs, but also because finding a way to stop animals from belching methane could save the estimated 11 percent of energy they lose on average through burping, he adds. “That would make more energy available for growing more wool and more milk,” says Aspin. Sounds like a goal even sheep would get behind.