There are still technical limitations, however. In terms of methane from livestock, small groups of animals pose problems for satellite monitoring, as do farms in places where agriculture is not the primary emissions source. “I’m also not sure how well we will be able to do sheep, which have smaller emissions than cows,” Mikaloff-Fletcher adds. On rice production, meanwhile, satellites cannot see through cloud and nearby wetlands can complicate the data: “It is going to be more challenging,” she says.
