Cattle & Global Warming
As climate change concerns mount, so do the voices attacking cattle farming. This is because cattle, especially cows, produce methane in their digestive tracts. Methane is a greenhouse gas 28 times more potent than CO2, although it slowly degrades into CO2 over time once released in the atmosphere, staying around 12 years.
In total, cattle are believed to be responsible for 25% of global methane emissions through enteric fermentation.
Source: EPA
It should be noted that this final CO2 is different from the one released by fossil fuels, as it came from the atmosphere in the first place and was absorbed by the plants feeding the cows. So, overall, cattle farming should not contribute to global warming if not for the methane emissions. In fact, it could even help capture carbon in the soil when husbandry is done following regenerative agriculture practices.
Still, reducing these methane emissions can be difficult, as it is an integral part of how cows digest plant material with the help of anaerobic bacteria. Some chemicals are being promoted for this purpose, but this raises concerns about food safety (more on that below).
A more natural alternative is being explored by researchers at the Department of Animal Science at the University of California: seaweeds.
Their findings were published in the prestigious scientific publication PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) under the title “Mitigating methane emissions in grazing beef cattle with a seaweed-based feed additive: Implications for climate-smart agriculture.”
Between Innovation And Public Backlash
Recently, large milk farm corporations like UK’s Arla Foods have been testing the use of new products to reduce their cattle’s methane emissions.
They used Bovaer, a feed additive that suppresses a methane-producing enzyme produced by DSM-Firmenish, a large animal nutrition company. The company claims Bovaer could reduce cow methane emissions by between 30-45%.
Despite Bovaer being authorized and available for sale in over 65+ countries, this has sparked a massive controversy. For example, in the UK, King Charles’ farming advisor accused Arla of ‘re-engineering the cow’ with feed supplement.
“Feeding cows potions to reduce emissions is a classic case of the dairy industry, and I use that word advisedly, treating the symptoms rather than the cause of the problem. The cause in this case is separating the dairy cow from her natural environment of which she is intrinsically a part.
Once this separation has occurred, both physically and in the mindset of society, methane becomes a problem which needs to be addressed by re-engineering the cow.”
Patrick Holden – King Charles’ farming advisor
Bovaer is made using silicon dioxide, propylene glycol, and organic compound 3-nitrooxypropanol (known as 3-NOP). Critics of the product point out that 3-NOP “should be considered corrosive to the eyes, a skin irritant, and potentially harmful by inhalation” according to a report by the FSA (UK’s Food Standard Agency).
Others looked at past letters from the FDA, which found that the additive could lead to male infertility. But this was for the product in a pure form.
Even if the product is indeed completely broken down in the cow’s stomach and does not appear in milk or meat, as DSM-Firmenish claims, quickly collapsing trust in food safety authorities following many scandals left many skeptics. This was compounded by viral social media attacks on the product, with for example TikTok clips receiving up to 1.8m views each.
We can expect similar reactions to other approaches, such as using vaccines to reduce methane emissions, as the startup ArkeaBio plans to do, backed by a Bill Gates-funded investment fund.
So instead of adding more exotic compounds or drugs into our food supply, more natural solutions are wanted. They are likely to be better accepted by the public, and as a result, be more commercially viable.
Seaweed To Fight Methane
How It Works
It was discovered some time ago that adding seaweed to a cow’s diet reduces its methane emissions. More precisely, in this study, they used pelleted bromoform-containing seaweed (Asparagopsis taxiformis) (Brominata).
This works by acting on the methanogen bacteria present in the cow’s digestive system. The halomethane compounds inside the algae are responsible (a molecule with a halogen gas atom like bromide, iodine, or chloride, bound to a methane segment), in this case, bromoform.
Source: Fisher Scientific
Halomethane compounds inhibit the last step of the chemical reaction bacteria used to synthesize methane. This molecule is found almost exclusively in nature, at least in large amounts, in marine red algae.
Radical Methane Reduction
On average, the methane production by the cows was reduced by 37.7% when fed the red algae pellets. The researchers tested multiple formulations to find the one the cows were the most likely to eat willingly.
Source: PNAS
The reduction in emission took a little time, as it required the bacterial microbiome of the cows’ digestive system to shift away from methane-producing archaea bacteria.
More importantly, the treatment had no impact on the weekly initial and final live weight, average daily weight gains, and predicted dry matter intake.
Efficient In Both Feedlots And Grassland
While some cows are raised fully indoors, most cattle farms practice a method with the cows being raised in pasture, and then moved to indoor “feedlots”.
Reducing the methane emissions in feedlots is a lot easier, as this is an environment where farmers have a lot more control over the animal and their food intake. Doing the same outdoors can prove a lot more tricky.
Grazing cattle also produce more methane than feedlot cattle or dairy cows because they eat more fiber from grass.
“Beef cattle spend only about three months in feedlots and spend most of their lives grazing on pasture and producing methane,”
Ermias Kebreab – Professor in the Department of Animal Science.
So overall, getting the cows to eat seaweed in the pasture is crucial for any of these plans to significantly reduce the sector’s methane emissions. To give the seaweed to the cows in open-air conditions, the researchers built a custom dispenser to distribute the pellet. It was solar-powered, allowing it to be deployed anywhere in the fields without prior infrastructure.
Source: UC Davis
This is actually not a radical departure from usual farming practices, as during the winter or when grass is scarce, ranchers often supplement the cows’ diet.
This method allowed the cows to eat the supplement willingly, as it was mixed with normal, more palatable feed.
What’s Next?
This new study demonstrates the potential of the approach and its validity in both feedlot and pasture settings.
Considering the public backlash against a more chemical-focused approach, it looks more promising from a PR and commercial standpoint. Additional improvement to the formulation of the pellets could help as well.
It is well-documented that cows can be more than a little skeptical of the taste of unprocessed seaweed. The researchers processed it into pellets, making it easier for the cows to eat. Still, further improvement in increasing the level of bromoform concentration in the product could be made, reducing the total needed in the supplement.
Other formulas other than pellets could also be considered for delivering the bromoform. For example, ranchers could even introduce the seaweed through a lick block for their cattle. Lick blocks are a commonly used method to deliver extra nutrients to cows, especially salt.
Source: Countryside
Long-term testing on the health of the cows consuming the seaweed will need to be performed as well, just to be sure that the accumulation of inorganic compounds such as iodine and bromine does not reduce yield even after a lifetime of these supplements.
Investing In Farming
There are many possible ways to invest in food and biomaterial production. And this is a major sector, with $9.09T in revenues globally.
This is also a very fragmented sector, with most of the farming activity done by relatively small companies, family businesses, etc. Overall, farming is rarely vertically integrated, with different companies supplying the input at different stages of the value chain: equipment, seeds, chemicals, labor, processing, reselling & marketing, etc.
You can invest in food-related companies through many brokers, and you can find here, on securities.io, our recommendations for the best brokers in the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, as well as many other countries.
If you are not interested in investing in one particular company, you can also look into biotech ETFs like the Global X AgTech & Food Innovation ETF (KROP), the iShares MSCI Agriculture Producers ETF (VEGI), or the VanEck Agribusiness ETF (MOO), which will provide more diversified exposure to capitalize on the vital food production industry.
Seaweed & Cattle Products Company
Darling Ingredients
Darling Ingredients Inc. (DAR -2.65%)
Darling is a company specializing in producing specialty products in the circular economy. This means that the company collects waste products from other industries and processes them back into useful, high-value compounds.
It usually provides an alternative to organic molecules that otherwise would be going to landfill or incineration.
Source: Darling Ingredients
This is a large company with 16,000 employees and 260 facilities in 15+ different countries on all continents.
Its activities are split into 3 segments:
- Feed, which includes animal and plant nutrients, as well as the collection of used cooking oil.
- Food, focused on gelatin and collagen, a market the company controls at 30%, as well as food supplements in capsules, gels, tablets, etc. This segment includes as well biomedical solutions for a wide range of applications including embolization, cell culture, bio delivery, and hemostatics (heparin).
- Fuel, transforming feedstock like animal fats, food waste, and used cooking oil into low-carbon biofuels and biogas.
Feed makes up half of the company’s earnings, with the other two segments roughly a quarter each.
Source: Darling Ingredients
The company has been using seaweeds for a variety of its products, including kelp extract.
As a leader in sustainability and already deeply embedded into the animal product value chain both for animal feed and for the reduction of carbon emissions, Darling is very well positioned to scale up the experimental results of feeding seaweed to cattle.
This would further boost the company’s credentials in fighting climate change, leverage its existing feed manufacturing facilities, and leverage its preexisting relationships with farmers.
