A GROUNDBREAKING three-day training in the Laguna province marked a significant step forward in enhancing greenhouse gas (GHG) monitoring for sustainable livestock management in Southeast Asia.
The training, "Quality Assurance for Livestock GHG Measurement," was conducted from Feb. 4-6 at the University of the Philippines Los Baños-Dairy Training and Research Institute (UPLB-DTRI) by the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA).
It brought together 17 participants from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Jointly led by the Philippine and Vietnam Greenhouse Gas Measurement Hubs, this initiative was supported by the New Zealand government's Climate Smart Agriculture Initiative and the University of California, Davis.
According to SEARCA Center Director Glenn Gregorio, the workshop aimed to enhance participants' skills in operating and maintaining GreenFeed units that measure livestock GHG emissions, such as methane and carbon dioxide. Other learnings include navigating the GreenFeed User Interface and the Control Feed App, enabling live data monitoring, remote execution of commands, an introduction to the headbox respiration chamber and best practices for managing animals during experiments.
The session covered equipment setup, package verification, safety protocols and troubleshooting techniques. The training also centered on troubleshooting and calibration, with participants practicing modem and SIM card installation, gas recovery and equipment maintenance. It emphasized experimental design, data integrity and best practices in GHG measurement, where participants learned to interpret collected data and develop actionable strategies for measuring methane emissions from livestock operations.
In their tour of the UPLB-DTRI Dairy Technology, Breeding, and Physiology and Nutrition laboratories, the participants gained insights into various tools used in animal science research.
Welcoming the participants during the opening were Roger Hegarty, GHG measurement trainer from the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Center; Shimels Wassie, research program manager for the Global Methane Hub Project at the University of California, Davis; Amado Angeles, dean of UPLB's College of Agriculture and Food Science; Nur Azura Binti Adam, SEARCA's deputy director for Programs; and Nova Ramos, head of SEARCA's Education and Collective Learning Department-Training for Development Unit.
At the end, the training equipped the participants with the skills and knowledge to effectively commission, operate and maintain GreenFeed units in real-world applications and ensure accurate and reliable GHG measurements.