Will methane inhibitors bridge the chasm on the innovation adoption curve?

In an earlier article, I wrote about farmer resistance to adopting the use of methane inhibitors. A DEFRA survey reported that 74% of farmers were not looking to trial one on their herd.

This statistic fits well with the standard theory of innovation uptake (Diffusion of Innovations) which segments adopters into five distinct groups.

The first group are the Innovators. This group will readily try out new technology or ideas because they are keen to experiment.

The innovators represent just 2.5% of the population according to the model. When applied to the likely average number of British dairy farmers, just 179 dairy farmers fit into this group.

The next group are the Early Adopters. This group are happy to take risks and try out new things which they feel will bring an advantage. These farmers are usually the ones featured in testimonials.

These two 'Early Market' groups, in theory, represent around 1,144 British dairy farmers, which is only 16% of the total. This leaves 84% of dairy farmers in the 'Mainstream Market'. These groups are far less likely to take up the technology without significantly more encouragement.

Some products quickly transition from initial uptake by Innovators and Early Adopters, through into the Early Majority and beyond. Especially in these connected times, it's easier to communicate positive messages and success stories to give the mainstream market the confidence to adopt.

Ultimately though, the Early Majority are pragmatic, risk-averse, and require lots of validation before adopting new innovation. This significant difference from the Early Adopters can create a roadblock to adoption by these bigger groups, especially in cases where risk and reward are not straightforward.

Referred to as The Chasm, this gap needs to be bridged before more users voluntarily take up the innovation. This means ensuring the innovation is practical to use, does not come with any risks or the risks have been mitigated, and that it is clearly validated by other users. Typically for farmers, validation is often best illustrated through the practical use on farm by other farmers.

In the case of methane inhibitors, the main benefit is invisible. The reduction in yield of a gas you cannot see is pretty hard to quantify on farm, especially to a pragmatist. Therefore, it's not suprising that the DEFRA study found 74% of farmers were not looking to trial an inhibitor.

Approaches to bridging the chasm

The DEFRA survey also showed that farmers main concern stopping adoption was animal welfare. This will need to be fully addressed before adoption can expand.

The second concern was whether products actually worked as advertised.

If we look at the inhibitor 3-nitrooxypropanol (3-NOP), whilst the headline figure of a 30% reduction is oft quoted, this seems very much dependent on the composition of the diet. A meta analysis of data reported in the Journal of Dairy Science provides a useful summary and offers some useful equations. An interactive version of these equations is available as a calculator on the Dairy Club website.

As shown below, the main variables affecting the reduction are the level of NDF, crude fat and starch in the diet. In general, increasing NDF and Oil/Fat content of the diet reduces effectiveness, whereas increasing starch improves it.

In addition, there is a phasing concideration to ensure that the 3-NOP is avilable at the time that methane is likely to be produced. This could be a challenge in cows at grass.

These nuances need to be appreciated if values are going be used in calculations for total GHG on farm or even sold as carbon credits. Farmers will need to be confident in the numbers.

The third concern from farmers was cost. At the time of writing this, the supply chain is barely passing enough back to farmers to cover the costs of production. Will consumers pay more for lower carbon footprint milk and if so, will this benefit be passed back to farmers or lost in the supply chain?

Some milk pricing schemes currently pay more for environmental good practice and pay less to farmers that don't meet the criteria. The question of this seesaw is: Is the higher price truly higher? Is the market footing the bill, or are the costs being borne by the farms at the lower end? What happens when all farmers are up to the new standard?

Late majority

A failure to bridge the chasm and attract the Early Adopters will mean the Late Majority and Laggards are unlikely to join the party and use inhibitors unless forced to.

Please share your thoughts on how the chasm can be best bridged.

It is in all our interests to reduce GHG and we will need all the tools in the toolbox to achieve Net Zero.