When we watch a cow ruminating quietly and quietly in a pasture it is hard to imagine that the animal is harming the environment with the release of methane.
While it is true that grazing cattle help the planet by renewing CO-absorbing meadows2, agriculture is generally responsible for 12% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, mainly methane, the second most harmful gas after carbon dioxide.
Agriculture and livestock generate 40% of the methane linked to human activity. The remainder comes mainly from the gas sector.
This is mainly due to the digestion process of ruminants, which release their emissions when belching, contrary to popular belief that attributes the phenomenon to flatulence. A total of 95% of cattle’s methane emissions come from their mouths or nostrils.
Research, both public and private, has intensified efforts to remedy the problem, but a solution is still far from being implemented on the farms.
The American group Cargill is developing a project with the emerging British company Zelp about a device in the form of a halter. The mechanism, placed above the nostrils of cows, filters the methane to turn it into CO2, whose heating effect of each molecule is much smaller than that of a molecule of methane.
“The first data are interesting, with methane emission reductions in half,” Ghislain Boucher, director of ruminant service at animal feed manufacturer Provimi (a subsidiary of Cargill), recently told AFP.
The device, however, still needs to be tested “under real conditions”, before possible commercialization in late 2022, or in 2023.
In the short term, Cargill is starting to sell in northern Europe a chemical food supplement, calcium nitrate: 200 grams in the daily ration would reduce methane emissions by 10%.
The cost is estimated to be “between 10 and 15 cents per cow and day,” said Boucher.
According to an American study, the potential of red algae as a food supplement is much higher, with emission reductions that can reach more than 80%. If the results can be reproduced, it would be convenient to develop the cultivation of red algae, especially near farms, according to California scientists.
But it is also necessary to observe how farmers will react, who will have to pay more without improving the economic benefits of animals, unless they are remunerated in the form of carbon credits, for example. And what consumers, concerned about the food eaten by cattle that end up on their plates, must also be considered.
Experts interviewed by AFP agree that, at the moment, it would already be possible to reduce the number of animals considered unproductive, for example, by anticipating the age at which cows have their first calf.
A report by the UN program for the environment said in May that the technological solutions had “limited potential” to significantly reduce the sector’s emissions.
The document recommended trying to change some habits, such as reducing food waste, improving farm management and adopting a diet with less meat and dairy products.
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