The Next Problem: Cow Burps

 

One dairy cow burps the same amount of emissions as a car. Seaweed can cut that in half. 

At Straus Dairy Farm on the California coast north of San Francisco, there’s a long history of sustainability. Cow poop is turned into electricity that powers the farm, including an electric truck that delivers cattle feed. The family farm, which aims to be carbon neutral by 2023, launched the first organic creamery in the country, and was also the first make a “carbon farm” plan, working with university researchers to study the climate benefits of techniques like adding compost to soil. This summer, it also became the site of the first commercial trial of a new solution: adding red seaweed to cattle feed to help reduce emissions from cow burps.

In the trial, emissions of methane—a potent greenhouse gas—dropped by an average of 52%. For some cows, methane emissions from burps fell by as much as 90%. 

“We’ve developed a scalable, replicable cultivation system that makes this meaningful on a global scale and affordable as a feed additive for cows,” she says.

In 2022, Blue Ocean Barns plans to keep working with dairy farms—and larger dairy brands that have aggressive goals to cut emissions—to demonstrate that the solution works. It’s something that could be implemented quickly, Salwen says, noting, “This is available right now. . . . Our material’s being used in a number of trials in Europe and other places to really quickly scale this up. And it works. On the first day you give it to a cow, her burps start abating immediately. And it lasts as long as you feed it to her.”

https://www.fastcompany.com/90691267/theres-a-simple-fix-for-emissions-causing-cow-burps-just-give-them-a-little-seaweed?

 Here's hoping it fixes cow farts, as well.


 

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