WE already add around one to two percent of zeolite to feed in order to control ammonia. Adding a seaweed to reduce methane production is useful.
Harvesting it may be another mater of course.
The good news is this will find its way into our commercial feeds pretty quickly once we are sure of these results here.
The seaweed itself will have to be planted on sub sea fields, or perhaps in paddies on a beach somewhere in which sea water is held during the tidal retreat. It may turn out to not be that hard.
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Cows Burp Out Tons of Methane. Feeding Them Seaweed Could Help
Adding seaweed to cows’ diet would help tamp down their methane emissions. (Credit: Jan K/ Shutterstock)
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2019/09/16/cows-burp-methane-seaweed-climate-change/#.XYFjn4ona70
Every
morning, Breanna Roque goes out to the barn to feed the cows. But this
isn’t your typical farm – in fact, it’s a laboratory. The University of
California, Davis graduate researcher spends her time among bovines,
tweaking their diets so that they burp less. Why? Less burps means less
methane. And less methane, on a global scale, could mean slowing down
climate change.
Roque is part of a team feeding cows a special diet, one that includes small portions of a sticky, red seaweed called Asparagopsis taxiformis.
It’s not the typical fare for the grass-happy bovines, but the
seaweed-infused feed serves a specific purpose – keeping the cows’
prodigious methane production in check.
Yes,
cow burps, (not farts, as often believed), release a considerable
amount of methane into the atmosphere. The EPA estimates that cows and
other ruminating animals, like cows and sheep, produce an estimated one third
of U.S. agricultural methane emissions. And although agriculture
accounts for a smaller percentage of greenhouse gas production than
other sectors like transportation and energy, it produces more methane,
which warms the Earth up to 84 times faster than CO2.
“People have been looking for a way to reduce methane for quite some time,” Roque says. It turns out seaweed, particularly A. taxiformis,
can help ruminating animals produce less gas. Curbing animal burps is
something researchers around the globe have tried to tackle in different
capacities. They’ve proposed feed additives, as well as more
far-fetched solutions, like an anti-methane vaccine.
But Roque is part of the first team to test the belch-quenching power of A. taxiformis in
actual cows, according to UC Davis ecologist and lead researcher Ermias
Kebreab. Prior studies demonstrated that the seaweed could reduce
methane production by up to 99 percent in artificial stomachs, but
questions remained about the seaweed’s effectiveness in the real world.
Roque and Kebreab are providing some of the first real answers.
Look to the Cows
You’ve
probably heard that cows have four stomachs, which is half true – their
stomachs are divided into four chambers, the first being the rumen.
When they swallow, cows repeatedly burp food back up, chew it as cud,
and swallow it again until it’s reached the proper mushy consistency.
But during that process, which cows repeat dozens of times throughout
the day, the digestive process produces methane as a byproduct.
Roque’s
team at UC Davis wasn’t the first to test the idea that adding
substances to animals’ feed might help reduce their burps. In fact, it’s
a question scientists across the globe have been pursuing.
In
2011, a team in Iran tested the effects of garlic oil, turmeric powder
and an additive commonly used in feeds called Monensin on sheep’s
methane production. They found that all three had just mild effects
in aiding digestion, meaning it did little to reduce methane
production. Following suit, a team in Denmark announced in 2016 that
they would look into the impacts of oregano
on reducing methane emissions from cow burps as well, hoping to see
them decrease by as much as 25 percent. No results from that study have
been published yet.
And that same year, a team in Portugal tested
five different types of seaweed in artificial cow stomachs, though they
didn’t look at A. taxiformis. Finally, researchers in Australia in 2016 found that A. taxifomis cut emissions by nearly 99 percent in artificial cow stomachs.
Snacking on Seaweed
The UC Davis team has conducted two studies, with a third on the way. The first one,
which replicated former tests in artificial cow stomachs, found that
when seaweed made up just five percent of cows’ normal hay feed, methane
production decreased by 95 percent.
But the results were even more promising when the team tested A. taxiformis in the diets of lactating dairy cows. They reduced the amount of seaweed content in the cows’ feed to either .5 or one
percent.
Cows eating a diet with .5 percent seaweed saw a 26 percent
decrease in methane, while those with a one percent diet produced 67
percent less methane.
“To me, that means that the seaweed works in an animal better than it worked in a lab,” Roque says. “You don’t see that often.”
But
how does it work? Roque says the seaweed contains a compound called
bromoform, which inhibits the creation of an enzyme that produces
methane during digestion in cows. Still, further research is needed to
fully understand why this seaweed works best.
Now, the team is
testing the seaweed diet in beef steer, to see if they get results
comparable to dairy cows. Roque says the team also has yet to test if
adding seaweed to cows’ diets will affect the taste or quality of the
animal products we normally get from cows. In the future, they’ll run
trials to see if seaweed gives cow’s milk a funky flavor, or leaves
steaks redolent of seafood.
The Counterpoint
Simply adding
a bit of seaweed to cow food sounds like an ideal climate solution. But
some scientists are skeptical of how effective it would actually be.
In order for the seaweed to have a real benefit in reducing emissions, A. taxiformis would need to be produced on a global scale. It’s a challenge that divides scientists.
At the annual American Dairy Science Association meeting in June, two researchers from University of Pennsylvania argued that mass production of A. taxiformis might
not be a realistic solution to climate change. Despite the seaweed’s
potency, they say animal agriculture contributes just five percent of
greenhouse gas production in the U.S. The majority comes from the
transportation and energy sectors — places where adding seaweed is far
less likely to be a solution. Plus, burp-curbing compounds in seaweed
are sensitive to heat and light and may lose their effects over time.
And on top of it all, the long-term effects on animal health haven’t yet
been evaluated.
But many are still eager to see the seaweed in
action. Roque says her research has garnered interest from outside
groups who want her help to mass-produce the seaweed for global animal
consumption.
“I have people reach out to me all the time,” she says. “Unfortunately I am an animal biologist and not a marine biologist.”
And just last month, researchers at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia announced they would be trying to find ways to farm A. taxiformis on a large enough scale to add to livestock feed in the real world.
Though
the introduction of seaweed into cow diets won’t fix all our climate
change woes, Roque still thinks the efforts are worthwhile.
“I think it’s very important to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
in the agricultural industry,” she says. “But I also think it’s important for
every industry to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.”
