Cross-Sector Leaders at Climate Week NYC Examine How to Scale Livestock Methane Solutions

Reducing methane emissions is one of the fastest ways to slow near-term warming, and livestock is among its largest sources. Some technologies and practices to cut these emissions already exist and, in a number of cases, have been proven in the field. However, it remains a challenge to get these solutions adopted widely on farms. On September 23, as part of Climate Week NYC, a cross-sector group of funders, governments, and industry leaders gathered with researchers and practitioners to work through what that will take.

The session, From Innovation to Adoption: Unlocking Market Incentives for Livestock Enteric Methane Mitigation, was convened by Clean Air Task Force (CATF) and Spark Climate Solutions as a side event to the official Climate Week NYC agenda. AgResults’ Parasto Hamidi joined the panel to share lessons from more than a decade of applying market incentives in agriculture, including their potential to accelerate adoption of solutions that reduce methane from livestock digestion. Curbing methane offers an immediate opportunity to slow near-term warming. Yet, as the discussion made clear, the obstacle is rarely the absence of a solution. Rather, it is the lack of market signals strong enough to drive adoption at scale.

“The barrier is rarely that the technology does not exist; it is that no one has a strong enough incentive to get it to the farm,” said Ms. Hamidi. “Pay-for-Results can help solve that problem by rewarding verified adoption rather than promised innovation.”

CATF and Spark opened the session by outlining the gap between what is technically possible and what is happening on farms today. The panel that followed turned to what shifts behavior in practice, with Leah Rosenzweig (Market Shaping Accelerator), Chris Adamo (Danone), and Parasto Hamidi (AgResults) each drawing on their own experience. Ms. Rosenzweig explained how market-shaping tools can align commercial incentives with an innovation’s social value, while emphasizing that livestock methane solutions will need a durable source of demand. Mr. Adamo shared how Danone is pairing its methane-reduction commitments with farmer support, industry partnerships, and co-financing models across the dairy supply chain.

AgResults brought a distinct model to the discussion. Rather than selecting recipients in advance, it designs competitions that reward participants only when results are independently verified — an approach it calls Pay-for-Results. By placing the incentive on the outcome itself, the model draws private-sector investment toward problems that traditional grant funding has struggled to address. Two of its projects relate directly to the livestock and animal health questions at the center of the session:

• The FMD Vaccine Challenge Project works to expand access to effective, regionally tailored Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) vaccines through a cost-share model that lowers the price for farmers while rewarding manufacturers for verified sales.
• The Tanzania Dairy Productivity Challenge Project rewarded private input suppliers for delivering quality inputs and advisory services to smallholder dairy farmers, tying payment to the reach they achieved rather than to inputs alone.

“The challenge is often not whether a methane-reducing solution exists, but whether businesses have a reason to deliver it to farmers at an accessible price,” explained Ms. Hamidi. “A well-designed incentive can shift that risk away from farmers and reward the private sector only after adoption occurs.”

The second half of the event featured a fireside chat on what it will take to expand these efforts, featuring Claire Mahony (Zero Net Emissions Agriculture CRC), Ruth Leary (AgriZeroNZ), and Jeppe Juul Petersen (Consulate General of Denmark). Ms. Leary described AgriZeroNZ’s public-private investment model and its Early Adoption Accelerator, which shares the cost of helping farmers put methane-mitigation technologies into practice. Ms. Mahony focused on closing the gap between technology readiness and commercialization by developing rigorous methods that allow companies to make credible emissions claims and monetize reductions. Mr. Petersen brought a policy perspective, including Denmark’s use of carbon taxation for livestock and animal production.

The discussion underscored that scaling promising technologies will require credible measurement, supportive policies, and durable incentives tied to verified outcomes. By working together, researchers, policymakers, companies, and funders can turn livestock methane mitigation into a practical pathway toward more productive, resilient agricultural systems and a more stable climate.

Learn more about the different events happening at Climate Week NYC 2026.

AgResults is a US$152 million collaborative initiative between the governments of Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as the Gates Foundation, and the World Bank Group that uses Pay-for-Results prize competitions to incentivize the private sector to overcome market barriers and create lasting change. Through AgResults’ results-based approach, these competitions reward participants for achieving independently verified outcomes that improve the lives and livelihoods of smallholder farmers.