Companies hesitate on quick fix to lower cow methane emissions

A feed additive called Bovaer reduces methane from cow burps by 30%. Despite having emission-cutting goals, JBS, Danone, Nestle and Starbucks aren’t racing to use it. Picture: BLOOMBERG

Cattle contribute more than 4% of the planet’s heat-trapping gases — a heftier climate impact than all the world’s airplanes. One barrier is cost. Bovaer is priced at about 30c per animal per day, or about $100 per year. A typical dairy cow in Western Europe will belch the equivalent of 3.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. That means Bovaer’s 30% reduction eliminates about 1 tonne of carbon dioxide at a cost of $100.

“It is genuinely market ready,” said Richard Eckard, professor of sustainable agriculture at the University of Melbourne. “It is very effective.” Feed additives like Bovaer have long been presented as a solution that could someday ease the daunting climate maths facing beef and dairy. There are 1.5-billion cows on the planet — a 62% increase since the early 1960s, according to the UN. That number is expected to climb as incomes rise around the world and demand for beef increases. Global food consumption is on pace to cause one degree of additional warming by the end of the century, according to a recent paper from Columbia University.

Some companies are pushing ahead with less expensive feed additives that have shakier climate benefits. Barry Callebaut, the Zurich-based chocolate maker, for instance, is chasing an ambitious goal to become “carbon positive” by 2025, meaning it will store more heat-trapping gases than it emits.

A spokesperson for Alltech, a Kentucky-based animal nutrition firm that recently acquired a majority interest in Agolin, defended the 2020 paper, pointing out that it included several peer-reviewed studies from “very esteemed researchers from leading universities”. About 20 months later, however, JBS has gone silent on its work with Bovaer, and the company declined to publicly discuss it. Instead, JBS officials sent Bloomberg Green a statement emphasising its various research efforts and pilot projects across the globe to cut methane from livestock, including the use of other additives like tannins and lemon grass. “JBS takes our environmental sustainability initiatives very seriously,” it stated.

If the world’s most profitable food companies are reluctant to pay for Bovaer, will anyone step up to deploy this at scale? One possibility may be Bel Group, the French cheesemaker, which produces brands like the Laughing Cow, Babybel and Boursin.

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