Farm emission plan announced, expect to pay more for your food...

[harm_less]

So in your argument the methane converts to CO2 which then a small percentage of it promotes pasture growth which feeds livestock who produce more methane from it. Your point was what?

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Thats like you saying burning wood converts to CO2 which then a small percentage promotes pasture growth who produce more methane from it.

Its a closed loop cycle (the carbon cycle)

Burning wood is considered OK because its carbon neutral, so is the methane from the cows.
The only issue that some might find is its half life which means the methane lasts about 10-12 years, but thats not really a big deal.

Grass -->cow-->methane-->CO2-->Grass/trees, etc all back to the start!

Did you know that methane is naturally produced everywhere by bacteria? Just think of compost, and all our native bush where decaying matter like leaves exist all rotting down.
Plus we have 8 billion humans farting about 2 balloons worth of gas a day too.
Africa has millions of wilderbeasts emitting gas too, along with elephants, etc, and every other bloody animal is making the stuff to some degree too!

The problem is that "small percentage" of either CO2 or methane that is returned to vegetation growth as the remainder escapes to the atmosphere where it contributes to the 'greenhouse effect'. The solution is to mitigate CO2 and methane production as in activities like intensive farming and transportation we are discharging far more of it that the carbon cycle is able to cope with. That 10-12 years of methane is a big deal, which our children and grandchildren will be forced to survive with, as will farmers over future decades.

Moreover methane is mostly produced in anaerobic surroundings such as ruminant digestion, landfill decomposition and fossil fuel deposits. While a relatively small amount of methane is emitted from leaf litter the net effect of this environment is positive in terms of such factors as slowing rainfall runoff, diversity of habitat for a multitude of organisms and as a net carbon sink in terms of humus generation.

By the way, elephants aren't ruminants and besides the huge populations of herbivores in natural habitats are generally migratory so their moving herds ensue that their emissions are sparsely distributed and easily dealt with/absorbed by the environment. They also don't pug and otherwise compact their grazing areas as happens in intensive farming systems, a phenomenon which also promotes anaerobic soil conditions and so methane production.