One key barrier is cost. Bovaer is priced at about 30-cents per animal per day, or about $100 per year. A typical dairy cow in Western Europe will belch the equivalent of 3.5 tons of carbon dioxide a year. That means Bovaer’s 30% reduction eliminates about 1 ton of CO2 at a cost of $100. That price would be a dream scenario for the startups pulling CO2 directly out of the air — but corporations routinely spend just $5 to $10 per ton to claim emission cuts through carbon offsets .
“It is genuinely market-ready,” said Richard Eckard, professor of sustainable agriculture at the University of Melbourne. “It is very effective at what it does.” Feed additives like Bovaer have long been presented as a solution that could someday ease the daunting climate math facing beef and dairy. There are 1.5 billion cows on the planet—a 62% increase since the early 1960s, according to the United Nations. That number is expected to climb as income levels rise around the world and demand for beef increases.
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 spokeswoman 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.” Meanwhile, Frank Keidel, a spokesman for Barry Callebaut, said they’ve been conservative in their claims. “Science thrives on the clash of opinions,” he wrote in an email.
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.