The founder of a red seaweed methane mitigation company is challenging government authorities on the irony of growing tonnes of the product in New Zealand but being unable to sell it here.
Dr Steve Meller, founder of CH4 Global, visited NZ from his Australian base this week to give a presentation to a Parliamentary select committee tasked with receiving submissions on the Regulatory Systems (primary industries) Amendment Bill.
Meller believes it is worth turning up personally in order to make the most of the opportunity the Bill offers to fix regulations he said make the manufacture and sale in NZ of new methane-reducing compounds expensive, time consuming and onerous.
The crux of current rules in NZ mean two years ago ACVM (Agricultural Compounds & Veterinary Medicines) regulations were introduced that blocked methane inhibitors from being used by farmers, requiring them to meet the onerous standards of veterinary medicines.
Meantime, for Meller’s company the rest of the world has beckoned as demand for methane mitigation tech has grown, alongside regulations he said are proving easier to navigate, including those in his home base of Australia.
“As it stands, the regulations in NZ have been so onerous no company has even started the application process here. Companies looking to enter the NZ market have withdrawn their interest.”
This has included the Netherlands-based Bovaer, now well established in South America, Australia and Canada and just gaining approval for use in the United States this week.
Last year Bovaer withdrew rather than enter the ACVM process, as did CH4 Global.
Meller said arguably a company like his could legally sell his product in NZ but would be unable to make any label claim about its methane mitigation ability, meaning it would be of little use to farmers having to supply to accredited low carbon programmes.
He said it is even more absurd that it is possible to sell the product here as an animal feed without any need to register it, but it cannot be fed at significantly lower quantities with the claim it is a methane inhibitor.
He said current regulations would require years of medical standard trials costing millions, out of line with other countries.
“I have to go in the world where there is a demand and desire to make an impact. Our goal on starting up was to have an impact upon climate change with urgency.”
In Australia dried red seaweed is not defined as a chemical product under that country’s regulations, and claims on methane reduction can be made.
This has the irony of CH4 Global using its large-scale seaweed growing facility at Bluff to provide the Australian market with the product, without being able to feed it here for the same purpose.
At present the product is only suitable for feeding in a feed lot situation, but Meller said by the first half of next year the company will have a product suitable for once-a-day feeding in a pastural dairy context.
He sees the solution lying beyond the changes initially proposed by the Bill before the select committee. This includes an amendment to enable natural non-toxic plants to be used as methane inhibitors without requiring registration as a trade name product under ACVM.
“This would not apply to synthetic inhibitors or concentrated plant extracts, which would still need to be registered and comply with other relevant legislation.”
CH4 Global also has plans and partners in line for another plant at an undisclosed location in NZ, but its go-ahead would be dependent upon the NZ market becoming more amenable to the use of such products.
In a written response to Farmers Weekly on Meller’s concerns about NZ regulations, New Zealand Food Safety deputy director-general Vincent Arbuckle said risks to animal welfare, trade and public health underpin decisions about methane mitigation products.
Arbuckle said the government’s decision to regulate inhibitors came after the nitrate inhibitor DCD was found in milk in 2012, with an ensuing trade risk.
He said further public consultation undertaken in 2020 on regulation options for inhibitors showed strong support from nearly all submitters for regulation. “While some inhibitors are novel technologies, they have many similar characteristics to agricultural chemicals and veterinary medicines.”
These include risks of residues that may affect animal or plant safety.
Therefore, the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines (ACVM) Act is considered the most appropriate piece of legislation to manage them and their risks to food safety, trade, and public health, animal welfare and biosecurity.
He pointed to recent work by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) with a paper noting gaps in knowledge and potential food safety implications, including bromoform-containing seaweeds used in feed.
This paper noted the use of these seaweeds in feed needs to be thoroughly assessed given bromoform is recognised as a probable human carcinogen, and signs of inflammation in the rumen cell wall of cows fed bromoform from red seaweed have been described.
“That the CH4 product is ‘natural’ is not central to determining its status as an inhibitor because natural products, just like synthetic products, can have risks associated with them.”
He believed it is quite probable other countries will follow NZ and amend their ACVM-type regulations for the same reasons NZ has.
He said NZ Food Safety also has work underway to explore streamlining the current legislation for inhibitors, including modifying efficacy requirements, and considering if certain groups of inhibitor products could be exempted from registration.
In Focus Podcast: Farmers do the sums as farm incomes tighten
Senior reporters Richard Rennie and Neal Wallace join Bryan to talk about Fonterra’s latest milk price forecasts, the frustration at the slow progress of methane inhibitors through the regulatory system and the state of sheep and beef farmer finances
