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 percent 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.

Source: Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. The grant opportunity opens Wednesday 7 February 2024 and closes Wednesday 20 March 2024. Details can be found on the Business Grants Hub.