Seaweed Found to Reduce Cow Methane

For those of us concerned about global warming, it's a fact that around 20 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions globally are due to methane released from cattle and other ruminant animals. 

Scientist in Canada have now discovered a particular seaweed that when fed to cattle reduces methane to nearly zero in their burps and their other, smelly and noxious, gaseous emissions. In the U.S. alone there are some 40 million cows, and all of them are contributing methane to our breathable air. 

Joe Dorgan, a farmer in Seacow Pond, Canada, began feeding his cattle seaweed he carried from the beaches nearby as a way to cut costs. He was so impressed with the lack of odors coming from his herd that he decided to turn the seaweed into a retail product.

Scientists from Dalhousie University tested Dorgan's seaweed mix and found it reduced the methane in the cows' emissions by about 20 per cent. They tried 30 to 40 other seaweeds and discovered that a red seaweed named Asparagopsis taxiformis reduces methane emissions in cows to almost nothing.

According to Rob Kinley, the lead scientist, "Agriculture stands to be one of the first to make major changes in the greenhouse gas inventory and so it's really a game changer if we can get this out into the market."

Kinley says it could take around three to five years to get commercial animal feed made from the seaweed to market. "Agriculture stands to be one of the first to make major changes in the greenhouse gas inventory and so it's really a game changer if we can get this out into the market. We're talking numbers equivalent to hundreds of millions of cars."