Agriculture

Agriculture is responsible for approximately 40% of all human-caused methane, from enteric fermentation in cattle herds to effluent lagoons at palm oil mills to waterlogged paddy fields releasing gas season after season. These emissions are large, and until recently, they have never been directly measured at the source, making effective agriculture methane monitoring a persistent challenge.

By enabling high-resolution agriculture methane monitoring, GHGSat gives agricultural producers, food companies, investors, and governments independently verified data on where emissions are occurring, how large they are, and whether reduction efforts are working, replacing inventory assumptions with evidence that can be disclosed, defended, and acted on.

GHGSat provides direct, independent methane measurement across the full breadth of agricultural emission sources from wide-area satellite coverage of entire growing regions and livestock landscapes to high-resolution airborne surveys of individual operations.

• Screen & Prioritise: Satellite measurement covers large agricultural areas and portfolios, identifying where methane emissions are elevated, which operations are contributing most, and where closer examination is warranted. This gives producers, supply chain managers, and investors an emissions picture at a scale that ground-based approaches cannot deliver.
• Measure & Attribute: Where a specific operation requires detailed assessment—a feedlot, an effluent pond, or a processing site—airborne measurement provides source-level quantification at sub-meter resolution, attributing emissions to specific lagoons, pens, or treatment areas and generating the emission rates needed for credible reporting.
• Verify & Report: Every measurement delivers quantified emission rates with documented uncertainty, structured for Scope 1 and Scope 3 disclosure, supply chain MRV, carbon market project verification, and regulatory inventory reporting. Repeat measurement over time confirms whether management changes, biogas capture, feed programs, or water management practices have actually reduced emissions.

Cattle and other ruminants produce methane through enteric fermentation—the microbial breakdown of feed in the digestive tract that releases CH₄ through belching. A single dairy cow produces up to 500 liters per day. At the scale of large beef feedlots, which can hold upwards of 100,000 head, these emissions aggregate into a significant and measurable atmospheric source.

Beyond digestion, manure held in liquid storage pits and lagoons under warm, anaerobic conditions produces additional methane through decomposition. Emission rates vary substantially with temperature, manure loading, and management practice, meaning that herd-count-based estimates consistently fail to reflect actual performance at individual operations.

In February 2022, GHGSat became the first organization in the world to measure cattle methane from space, quantifying emissions of 361–668 kg/hr above a beef feedlot near Bakersfield, California. That direct measurement capability is now available globally, allowing producers and regulators to distinguish between high- and low-emitting herds and operations and to verify whether feed programs, herd management changes, or waste treatment upgrades have reduced emissions.

Processing fresh palm fruit into crude palm oil (CPO) generates large volumes of liquid wastewater known as Palm Oil Mill Effluent, or POME. Most mills route this effluent through open anaerobic lagoons, where organic matter decomposes continuously and releases methane to the atmosphere. Without biogas capture infrastructure, POME lagoons are among the most concentrated methane sources in tropical agriculture.

GHGSat has detected methane plumes from palm oil operations across 12 countries in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Peer-reviewed research using GHGSat imagery has confirmed satellite-based detection and quantification of POME emissions from individual mills in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Colombia. This data gives palm oil producers, traders, and their financiers the ability to identify which mills in a supply chain are emitting, at what rate, and where biogas capture investment would deliver the greatest climate and commercial return.

Flooded paddy fields create waterlogged, oxygen-depleted soil conditions in which methane-producing microbes thrive. The mechanism is identical to natural wetlands: organic matter decomposes anaerobically, releasing CH₄ that bubbles through the water column and enters the atmosphere. Rice cultivation is estimated to account for 10–12% of global anthropogenic methane, making it one of the largest single agricultural sources worldwide.

Emissions vary significantly with water management practice, rice variety, soil type, and seasonal conditions. Intermittent flooding and alternate wetting-and-drying techniques can reduce emissions substantially, but only if independently verified. National inventories for rice methane carry wide uncertainty ranges, and MRV for carbon market programmes or policy compliance requires direct measurement rather than modelled estimates. GHGSat’s satellite data provides the coverage needed to assess emissions across entire growing regions and to verify the impact of changed water management practices at scale.

Large-scale dairy, swine, and poultry operations generate high volumes of organic waste that must be stored and managed before land application or treatment. When held as liquid slurry or in open lagoons under warm, oxygen-poor conditions, this waste continuously releases methane. Uncovered lagoons at intensive livestock operations can be significant emission sources often exceeding enteric fermentation in methane intensity per unit of organic matter.

Standard emission factors applied uniformly to herd size or production volume cannot capture the difference between a well-managed covered lagoon and an uncovered pit operating in summer heat. Direct measurement identifies which specific storage systems are the highest contributors, enabling producers to target covers, anaerobic digesters, or operational changes at the operations where they will have the greatest impact, and to confirm through repeated measurement that those changes have worked.

Agriculture’s methane footprint extends beyond the farm into the processing infrastructure that handles organic outputs. Sugar mills produce methane from wastewater treatment lagoons and fermentation byproducts. Aquaculture ponds in warm climates generate methane through the decomposition of uneaten feed and biological material. Any operation combining organic inputs with anaerobic treatment or storage is a potential methane source.

These sources are frequently absent from emissions inventories because they sit between agriculture and industry, without clear ownership in existing regulatory frameworks. For vertically integrated agri-businesses and food companies conducting comprehensive Scope 1 and Scope 3 inventories, GHGSat’s satellite and airborne services provide the coverage and quantification needed to account for the full emissions footprint of their value chain.