Novel online Tool for locating Research facilities and analyzingEnteric Methane data from Sub-Saharan Africa

International audience The following project is part of the “Transforming Food Systems and Agriculture through Research in Partnership with Africa” (TSARA) initiative, that is seeking to improve food security, combat global warming, consolidate biodiversity, human and animal health, while strengthening scientific collaborations between Europe and Africa.Despite the importance of livestock in Sub-Saharan Africa, related data remained fragmented, insufficient and did not consider the diversity of existing production systems. The research activities carried out in the past made few connections between the main regions. Consequently, there is a lack of centralized information, holding back the development of strategies to improve livestock productivity while addressing climate change concerns. To solve this issue, we developed a web application that uniformizes and centralizes data related to enteric CH4 emission, diets and animal performances. The platform ensures data consistency by checking submitted data against multiple constraints as well as by providing ways to compare it with the existing database. The website is currently made of two parts. One is called MeCLAN, referring to “Method to evaluate low-Carbon Livestock in sub-Saharan Africa-research Network” project. It has data on sub-Saharan African institutions separated in 7 sections: general information, location, additional information, ethics, land and livestock management, research topics and research equipment. This data can be used to identify potential project partners. The other part is called Metheix, and has published experimental data including, but not limited to, data from MeCLAN’s institutions’ publications. The collected data consists of 4 main sections: variables related to the description of the animals, the diets composition fed to the animals, the diet digestibility and fermentation in the rumen and the animal production performance (milk or meat production). Additional variables store the meta-data of the publication. Metheix’ data analysis allows to study the impact of various feeding techniques on greenhouse gases emissions. In addition to the data storage provided via the website’s database, Metheix offers analysis tools as custom graphs to visualize the data, keywords counter tool to help find relevant publications and more. By developing user-friendly intuitive interfaces, we made sure that authorized users are able to upload, export, visualize and analyze data. Thus, collaborative research on agricultural greenhouse gas emissions reduction is facilitated.