In addition to making headlines on the first day of Bali by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol and putting pressure on the US to do the same, Australia’s been making scientific headlines for a different kind of progress… Helping cows and other livestock become methane-free! First Rudd’s success, now ‘roos…
Globally, emissions from livestock are estimated to be 28 percent of “manmade” greenhouse gas emissions! Japanese researchers calculated that the production of each kilogram of beef had an average greenhouse impact of 80 pounds of CO2. But its not just meat — though global demand for red meat is increasing annually — its also the production of leather, dairy products, goat cheese, and wool. And while agricultural energetics and the benefits of eating locally might not rationalize the entire world giving up all animal products cold turkey, reducing the global GHG impact of lifestock would be a great improvement.
British researchers have proposed changing the grasses fed to cows in order to reduce methane production, as grasses with higher levels of sugar allow the bacteria within a cow’s stomach to process food more efficiently into energy, while producing less methane. Meanwhile, the Swiss Ruminant Nutrition Group has discovered that diets rich in plant fats (from sunflower seeds or flaxeed) as well as tannins and saponins, make it possible “to reduce the emission of methane up to 20 percent,” according to Professor Kreuzer at ETH Zurich. But saponins taste soapy and tannins are bitter for cows, and such food additives don’t address grass-based pasture farming.Researchers in Wales have started feeding cows increased amounts of garlic, which can decrease the amount of methane produced by cows by up to 50 percent, but certainly doesn’t improve cow-breath, and is actually illegal in Switzerland (because of the garlic taste that ends up in the milk and meet). Other researchers have proposed giving cows pills filled with methane-reducing chemicals that would have the same effect as garlic, with less impact on taste (though even more chemicals and chemical processing).
But Australia is proposing another solution — kangaroos! Methane produced from cattle farming contributes 15 percent of Australia’s emissions and in New Zealand, livestock methane is responsible for closer to 50 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. But while grazing on the same grasses (and without eating garlic) kangaroos produce no methane at all, because of the particular bacteria found in their stomachs that produce acetate instead.
While some kangaroo farmers are hoping the world will switch over to ‘roo sausages (and sweaters?), scientists like Athol Klieve, a Queensland research scientist, are trying to isolate those bacteria and move them into cow stomachs. This would make cows produce less methane AND harness more of the energy from the food they eat! While this might be a few years down the research track, the new reports from Queensland are generating a lot of excitement (not to mention flatulence jokes).
Meanwhile, as long as cows are producing methane, we may as well be using it! There are many projects to capture the methane from cattle farming operations (as well as sewers…) and use it to generate clean, cow-powered energy. And cow stomachs might offer a few solutions of their own — scientists have been able to use the non-methanic bacteria from cow stomachs to run microbial fuel cells!
Subscribe by Email!
Subscribe by RSS!
Share on Facebook
It amazes me that people so smart as to worry about greenhousegas; don’t know that pigs and chickens don’t eat grass; (just rumenants like cows)And that “grass” is the “great healer” of overfarmed–overcultivated “grain on grain” farms. Grain after grain will destroy the organic matter (top soil); it needs a rest (planted back in sod or grass for a few years) to regain itself; if not; you will eventually get “the dirty thirties” again. These “educated” people also don’t know that not all the planet is good for growing grain. Some of it is too rockey; some fields to small to use “economical” equipment in, some too wet, some too hilly, some just too far north (like most of Canada) for viable grain production. Some of these “smart” people may not know that the most efficient crop of grain to plant and harvest is the crop following a sod (grass) field; because it takes NO CHEMICAL NITROGEN, and if manure (that animal by-product) is spread before planting grain; NO CHEMICAL PHOS. OR POTASH is needed either! If you dispute my story; just ask ANY OLD FARMER! (not some enviromentalist)
Maybe you shouldn’t call it a solution unless one is found.
Dr. Klieve has been working on this stuff for 5 years.
Maybe he needs more help?
http://www.tropicalgrasslands.asn.au/Newsletter_archive/TGS%20NL%20Jun%2003.pdf
Klieve has been going for about 5 years, but other people have been going a lot
longer (I have found papers going back to 1988). Why would anybody want to
put kangaroo gut microbes into a ruminant when ruminants are more efficient at
turning pasture into meat? Farmers have already shown they won’t accept anything
which reduces productivity.
Secondly, there have been 2 studies looking at the maxiumum possible tonnage of
meat which can be produced from kangaroos. They both came in at about 2% of the
amount of beef currently produced in Australia. They are actually small animals once
you dress the carcass
and most of the meat is junk, you only get about 11kg per carcase and
only about 2kg of that is “good” quality — the rest is pet food at best.
People who think you can replace cattle by kangaroos clearly don’t know anything
about either industry.
Thirdly, red meat kills people. It gives then heart disease and colorectal cancer, two
name 2 of Australia’s most deadly health problems. Kangaroo meat may reduce
heart problems, but it still contains heme iron which is what damages your DNA and
gives you colorectal cancer.
Lastly, between 1990 and 2004 (I haven’t got figures later than that yet) Australian
cattle farmers were deforesting about 400,000 hectares of native forest annually in
one of the planet’s biggest attacks on wildlive and biodiversity just to produce
a food which kills people and heats up the planet.
Oh, yes, I almost forgot. Checkout page 206 of IPCC AR4 (Chapter 2). You will find
that globally, annual methane and carbon dioxide emissions have pretty much
the same impact on warming. The usual comparison which says that methane has about
1/3 of the impact compares the last 50 years of methane emissions with the last
1000 years of CO2 emissions. Which is why James Hansen has been recommending
40% reductions in anthropogenic methane emissions for quite some years.
Hey guys, instead of transferring roo bacteria into cow stomach, people should - if they really HAVE to continue eating meat - just eat kangaroo instead. It’s much better for the land as their paws are softer than cow hoofs, thus cause less soil compaction. It’s already available in lots of Aussie supermarkets.