Farmer's Little Helpers: A Pill To Cut Down On Cow Farting
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 03.28.07
Anyone who has driven through dairy country has noticed that cows out to pasture generally all face in a similar direction. We always thought that bovine behavior had a practical basis...if you were a cow that is...such that if your neighbor let fly, you would be better able to hear trouble coming and "hoof it". Now, we see that some German agricultural researchers may have developed a novel means of climate change mitigation (Bovin-o?) which, if it has commercial success, may allow cows to align themselves in a more casual manner.Via the Guardian Cow farts (methane gas) are responsible for a good chunk of total greenhouse gas emissions. "And now, German scientists have invented a pill to cut bovine burping. The fist-sized plant-based pill, known as a bolus, combined with a special diet and strict feeding times, is meant to reduce the methane produced by cows." According to one of the researchers at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, "The idea is that the cows would use the methane to produce glucose instead of passing it as wind. In turn this should help them to produce more milk." Note: methane gas has a longer atmospheric lifetime than it's breakdown product, C02, and hence methane has a much higher climate forcing potential. Thus, a little prevention goes a long way. The underlying marketing principle here seems solid too. Give farmers a productivity enhancing tool that has corollary environmental benefits and the free market can make it happen. Still, it's not a good enough reason for bringing a cow on the elevator. For those concerned with animal welfare and bio-accumulation potential, we read elsewhere that that bolus' active ingredients are various humic acids, natural plant derived tannins specifically. Image credit: The Berkshires
Okay, reducing methane is a great thing. Surely some reduction is beter than none, and cows aren't going to dissapear anytime soon. However, wouldn't it make more sense to invest in other forms of agriculture that inherently produce very little methane instead?
8% of annual greenhouse gasses in CO2 equivalent are belched by the world's cattle and other farmed animals. Why not also stop eating cows so there is no incentive to have them belching in the first place? As wendell Berry said, we must "solve for pattern" and not take reductionistic approaches to dealing with problems. We need cultural reform just as greatly as agricultural reform.
== author's response follows ====
OK. How then do we approach Asian rice culture, where from anoxic rice paddies emit much methane?
Methane does *not* have a longer atmospheric lifetime than carbon dioxide. The chemical lifetime of methane is 12 years before it breaks down into carbon dioxide and water:
http://www.epa.gov/methane/scientific.html
But carbon dioxide can persist in the atmosphere for hundreds of years:
http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/990415/coral-reef.shtml
It does have a higher forcing potential while it's around, so anything that reduces methane emissions is a good thing.
=== author's response follows ====
Technically speaking you are correct, of course. My poorly stated point was that methane takes time to decay in the atmosphere and then, as you say, during the decay process creates C02, which forces climate change. Allowing the methane to decay slowly in the atmosphere extends the impact time frame above what it had been if only C02 had been released. Does that make better sense? I hope so.
Sounds like the farmer is just giving them Metamucil ! I'm sure the process is more complex than that, but still. Cows probably would get pretty good fiber from a grass diet, but cows are often fed highly processed foods. On feedlots they use whatever salvage food they can get cheap. It can be Froot Loops or Twinkies. Then cows would need a bit of roughage.
Rice, too, creates a lot of methane and uses lots of water as well. The thing is that the rice market is generally not also perpetuating major rainforest deforestation and topsoil erosion. Rice is also generally more land and energy efficient to create since its producing only the first trophic level, in contrast to the first and second. It also generally doesn't include as much institutional cruelty and exploitation of nonhuman animals and marginalized humans as the cattle/dairy and slaughter industries do.
Even so, perhaps we should eat less rice in favor of another grain. Despite my skepticisms of the new technologies aptness to significantly reduce Global warming, I welcome the pill a cooperative approach to reducing the number of cattle in the world which is concstantly rising with higher standards of living.
Its also unfortunate that free-range cows generally produce more methane from their grass diet (though less ecoli) than feedlot cows. Another reason why the most humane and environmentally sensitive decision is to eliminate, if not reduce cows and their products from one's life.
Does the writer understand that cows eat plants (or other organisms that have eaten plants), which take in CO2 to form sugars (glucose, cellulose, etc). The cows then use this sugar to make energy, releasing the CO2. When they BELCH (not fart) out methane, this comes from the food they ate. Therefore, once the methane has broken down, it is carbon neutral.
Methane gas itself only lasts 12 years. But in those 12 years, it does many times more damage. This means that, over 100 years, it does 23x the damage, even if it does it in 12 years.
==== author's response follows ====
Cows are fed corn and supplements which have very large petrochemical inputs. Hardly "neutral."
Which end the gas is emitted from is not relevant to the physics of climate change, the subject header and intro were intended to be light hearted treatment of a serious subject.
Cow burps and farts?? Come on people!!! Make a difference, TURN OFF A LIGHT (better be a CFL), RIDE YOUR BIKE, and RRR!!! A better tomorrow starts at home.
I agree - cow farts? Get a life - please people. All those vegans out there that do nothing for the planet at all (veggies alone are not sustainable &you support Monsanto with all your processed soy fake foods) please support your "sustainable farmer" who puts back into the earth nourishment (from the cow poop & chicken poop -- it makes everything grow better)....we are meant to eat what nature hands us, and nature hasn't handed us soy burgers, and fake hotdogs. Making a real difference on the planet means supporting people who do right - small farms, NOT agribusiness. These are good people who do right, and this is how we make a better world. That, and smaller cars -- cut down on breeding more consumers, and teach your kids how to be self-sufficient and not need to rely on a store for everything. That helps the Earth.