“Cows Consuming Seaweed Helps Reduce Carbon Emissions, Benefit for the Environment” – Yale Climate Connections

Transcript:

Feeding cows seaweed? It might sound strange, but it could help farms reduce their climate impact.

When animals like cows, goats, and sheep digest their food, they burp up methane – an extremely potent planet-warming gas.

And when you add up all the farm animals in the world, that methane becomes a big problem for the climate.

Meller: “There’s 1.5 billion cows on the planet. And then there’s another billion sheep, and another billion goats.”

Steve Meller is the CEO of CH4 Global. His company has developed a new cattle feed supplement made from asparagopsis, a type of seaweed.

Scientists have discovered that when cattle eat this seaweed, they produce a lot less methane.

The company says their supplement can reduce methane from cows by at least 70%.

And farmers only need to use a little for it to work.

Meller: “Think of it like sprinkling salt on a meal. … It’s as an additive, so it’s less than one-half of 1% of the cow’s total daily diet.”

The company grows the seaweed in Australia in huge ponds built on land that’s not suitable for farming.

And if Meller’s group can scale up production in the coming decade, it could significantly help limit methane from the world’s farm animals.

Reporting credit: Ethan Freedman / ChavoBart Digital Media