What A Breath Of Fresh Air -- Ensuring That Cattle Are Less Gaseous Masses!

Regarding the issue of global warming, everyone’s been on the lookout for a scapegoat – or scapecow – to point the finger at for quite some time now. Ruminant animals haven’t yet evolved to the point where they can defend themselves verbally, but they are notorious for expressing themselves in other highly audible (and odiferous) ways which apparently account for 37% of our global methane production. This alternate form of communication has resulted in countless sideline snickers, but more importantly, it has earned cows the unfortunate distinction of being highly maligned methane spouting time bombs. Studies suggest that in the last 200 years, our atmospheric methane content has more than doubled, but it’s unfair to peg it all on cows.

Modern industry and human activity – including coal and oil production, landfills, and sewage – are as equally to blame as farm animal manure and cow burps. In fact, everyone should be a little bit sympathetic toward the gaseous plight of our long lashed, mooing cattle because what goes on behind the scenes is really beyond their control. We all have our off days now and again, but imagine being a cow saddled with not one but four stomach compartments containing trillions of naturally occurring microbes and bacteria. While these friendly worker bees assist their host in breaking down cellulosic material found in the diet of grass and other plant matter that cows happily chomp on, the natural by-product of their digestion process is methane – and it’s got to escape…somehow, somewhere.

Despite what many people think, cows are more likely to release that gas through their mouths via a burp than in any other way. Unfortunately, with 1.5 billion of them globally, that’s a lot of heat-trapping greenhouse gas drifting up into our atmosphere – specifically an estimated 53 gallons of methane per cow per day. Believed to contain 23 times the warming potential of other greenhouse gases, it is understandable that scientists are earnestly trying to devise ways to reduce it. Fitting herds with neon pink plastic methane measuring devices, scientists are hard at work exploring options that will help the dairy and meat industry cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 25% within 10 years (which would be like taking 1.25 million cars permanently off of U.S. roads).

One of the most popular strategies they’ve come up with is modifying their diet.  Imagine that – scientists finally recognize that rather than forcing cattle to consume corn and soy (which fatten them up faster and cause them gastric distress), they should return to feeding them nutritional sources that their bodies are able to process more effectively! Some are considering flax seed, alfalfa and even fish oil additives – in fact, Stonyfield Farms is leading a dietary pilot program called Greener Cow that has noted methane reductions in their test herd of as much as 18% since January 2009. One of the positive side effects of their new eating regimen is that cows are producing higher volumes of milk that contain more complex nutritional components – hardly surprising if you believe the old adage that you are what you eat. Stonyfield plans to release a complete assessment of their cattle dietary modification program by summer 2009 with the hopes that it will set the stage for a massive overhaul in the industry. Happier cows make less gaseous masses!