The Australian Government has released grant guidelines for the next funding round under Stage 3 Round 2 of the Methane Emissions Reduction in Livestock (MERiL) program.
A total of $9 million in grant funding is available (with $1 to $3 million available per project). The grants are to support development of methane reducing solutions for grazing livestock.
Around 95% of Australia's beef cattle, dairy cows, and sheep graze over large areas and have limited contact with farmers. This presents challenges for the uptake of methane-reducing solutions such as feed supplements. Stage 3 of MERiL aims to address this problem by supporting the development of cost-effective feed supplement delivery technologies and other solutions.
The MERiL program includes three stages:
- Stage 1 (2020-21 to 2024-25) provided $4 million in grant funding to 6 projects researching methane-reducing feed supplements and forage feeds.
- Stage 2 (2022-23 to 2023-24) provided $5 million in grant funding to 11 projects to determine the feasibility of different technologies to deliver feed supplements to grazing animals.
- Stage 3 Round 1 (2023-24 to 2025-26) provided $ 6 million in grant funding to 3 projects to support later-stage development of technologies to deliver feed supplements to grazing animals.
- Stage 3 Round 2 (2024-25 to 2026-27) is the current grant opportunity.
The grant opportunity opens Wednesday 7 February 2024 and closes Wednesday 20 March 2024. Details can be found on the Business Grants Hub.
