New Zealand allows cows to drink cocktails to reduce methane

New Zealand is experimenting with cocktails to see if that can help reduce methane emissions.

Cows and other ruminants use microbes in their stomachs to break down tough fibers that cannot be digested by humans. Artwork: AFP. Accordingly, one of the largest dairy producers in the world, the Fonterra Cooperative Group, is using a cocktail branded “Kowbucha”, a well-known kombucha fermented drink, to see if it can reduce the anesthetic gas. -tane produced from 4.9 million New Zealand cows. Unlike most developed economies, New Zealand is heavily dependent on agriculture, especially cows and sheep. So while other countries focus on cutting carbon dioxide, New Zealand has a much bigger problem with gases produced in animal stomachs. “The ferment produced can have quite a large impact on digestion, not just in humans, but also in animals,” said Jeremy Hill, a scientific researcher at the Fonterra Cooperative Group. Kowbucha is one of the company’s options, and the company is also looking at other options including seaweed. The technology is still in the early stages of research and, like other potential solutions to treat methane emissions from cows, questions about how to implement it are and whether the farmer will have enough. affordability or not. But what matters for New Zealand is whether it reaches zero net emissions. Methane, made up of carbon and hydrogen, is 56 times more effective than the effects of CO2 to heat the Earth when measured over 20 years. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that global methane levels need to be reduced by 40-45% by 2030 to be able to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. . What’s more, because methane has been in the atmosphere for only a decade, reducing it can yield a relatively quick victory over CO2, which has been around for centuries. The Global Methane Assessment, to be released next week, shows that curbing man-made methane emissions at 45% by 2030 will drop by almost 0.3 degrees Celsius. global warming in the 2040s, preventing more than a quarter of a million premature deaths. But the scientific approach to reducing the emissions from cow digestion is much more difficult than to limit other methane emissions, such as oil and gas field outbreaks or leaks from fields. bury. Cows and other ruminants use microbes in their stomachs to break down tough fibers that cannot be digested by humans. Therefore, suppressing the methane they generate requires adjusting the biology and physiology of the animal. Like the Kowbucha solution, Fonterra is working on using red seaweed to suppress bacteria. The company partnered with the Dutch Royal DSM NV Nutrition Company to accelerate the rollout of Bovaer, a synthetic feed supplement that has been shown to reduce methane emissions by about 30%. The company, which has an annual $ 72 million research budget, has also researched the development of “climate-smart” cows whose stomachs release less methane, as well as research to develop vaccines. But producing climate-friendly cows takes years and vaccine development is “very, very difficult,” Hill said. Seaweeds, which have attracted a lot of attention in recent years, are difficult to eat in grassland animals, species that do not like the taste and may have safety problems with substances such as bromoform, A toxic chemical found in small amounts in ocean plants. Dairy companies are under increasing consumer pressure to reduce livestock carbon emissions, according to Dan Blaustein-Rejto, director of agriculture and food at Breakthrough Institute, an environmental research organization. Creating more climate-friendly products could allow them to gain an edge and could help fight competition from a growing number of alternatives, such as oatmilk, sandwiches. Vegan meats and other plant-based alternatives. If successful, the New Zealand efforts could serve as a test case for the global livestock industry, especially countries like Ireland and Brazil that rely on ruminants for a share of export revenue. . But the Climate Change Commission says technologies under development cannot be considered to meet the interim goal. Harry Clark, commissioner of the Climate Change Commission, said: “The silver bullet (referring to the easy, quick-PV solution) for dairy technology has only been taken into account for the past 12 years. It hasn’t worked yet. “