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A GREEN Alliance report urging Ministers to set out a plan to reduce agricultural methane emissions has been slammed by farmers.

The document,Global Methane Pledge, claimed the farming industry could reduce its methane emissions by at least five per cent over the next decade if the Food Standards Agency accelerated the approval of the methane reducing supplement Bovaer/3-NOP.

It also suggested an additional four per cent reduction could be achieved through better slurry management, including adding acid to slurry stores to cut emissions and produce better fertiliser.

Dustin Benton, policy director at Green Alliance, said: Right now, [UK farmers] are on their own: unlike in New Zealand, Australia, the EU, Brazil or Chile, the Government is not helping farmers to cut methane emissions, despite ample evidence that this can support farm productivity.

Anthony Ellis, a mixed farmer in Cornwall and independent agronomist, reacted to the idea of using acid in slurry stores with despair, while others pointed out methane emissions should be treated differently to CO2 or nitrous oxide emissions because methane is a flow gas which breaks down within 10 years.

The farming industry has, alongside climate scientists, been warning for some years that the current carbon metric, GWP100, is unfit to assess the impact of short-lived greenhouse gases.

Ian Davis, a retired farmer and academic, said the whole report was based on the inappropriate use of GWP100.

Also comparing the UK to New Zealand conveniently omits to mention that New Zealand is treating methane measurement separately from CO2 for exactly this reason, he added.