Some farmers in Britain’s biggest dairy cooperative are feeding their cows a new methane-suppressing drug developed with the help of billionaire Bill Gates, an effort that has the enthusiastic support of UK supermarket chains willing to portray food production as a climate problem in need of a fix.
Thirty dairy farms in the Arla co-op are taking part in the trial of Bovaer, which is fed to cattle as a supplement to cut the bovines’ methane belches by up to 30 %. Grocery chains Morrisons, Aldi and Tesco are partners in the initiative. “Being involved in using a feed additive is a great way of testing out where we can drive change at scale to bring down emissions,” the companies said in a joint statement.
Bovaer was also approved for use in Canada in January of this year, although there appears to be little incentive for cattle farmers here to incur the additional cost of feeding it to their animals. European bioscience company DSM-Firmenich developed the drug with support from Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund.
The active ingredient in Bovaer is 3-nitrooxypropanol or 3-NOP. Studies show that cows digesting the substance do not pass the drug’s resulting metabolites in their milk or meat. Still, the idea of feeding the supplement is not without controversy. Some people on social media say they will stop buying products from the involved dairy co-op.
The climate-control industry has been fascinated for a while with using medicine, diet and breeding to tweak bovine digestive systems in a bid to cut methane emissions from agriculture. In August, researchers in the UK working on a vaccine to cut cattle methane received a $9.4 million grant from a fund set up by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos. In Canada, semen vendor Semex has added a “methane efficiency” index allowing farmers to specifically breed for offspring with lower emissions.
Methane is touted as a potent greenhouse gas, worse than carbon dioxide, and cattle have come under increasing global scrutiny as a methane source. Ruminant animals release methane from both ends of their digestive tract, though mostly — about 90 % — through burping.
Conveniently overlooked, however, is the fact that cattle methane is not a fossil fuel. Cattle are part of the current carbon cycle and, as living things, only recycle molecules already part of the biosphere. Also lost in the discussion is methane’s relatively short lifespan once released: It naturally breaks down into water vapour and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere within 9 to 12 years, according to NASA.
You can now read the most important #news on #eDairyNews #Whatsapp channels!!!
🇺🇸 eDairy News INGLÊS: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaKsjzGDTkJyIN6hcP1K
