Supplement can reduce methane gas from cows and generate profit for farmers

With more than 1.4 billion cows in the world, livestock is responsible for almost 10% of all greenhouse gases generated by human activity.

A large part comes from the methane that cows emit, but a new dietary supplement could reduce those emissions by 30%, according to its manufacturers. If every cow in the world ate the supplement, the reduction in emissions could be equivalent to taking more than 300 million cars off Europe’s roads.

Developed by Swiss-British startup Mootral, the supplement, based on garlic and citrus extracts, is mixed with regular cattle feed, reducing methane emissions by about one ton of carbon dioxide per cow per year.

The company is now converting those savings into carbon credits – approved by Verra, a global voluntary carbon offset program – that are sold to companies that want to offset their emissions.

Proceeds from the sale of carbon credits go back to farmers, subsidizing the initial cost of the feed and encouraging them to buy more, Mootral CEO Thomas Hafner told CNN Business.

“Carbon credits are an important stimulus tool to drive the adoption of climate-friendly technologies,” says Hafner.

Farmers Market

Brades Farm in Lancashire, North West England is the first commercial farm to take advantage of Mootral’s carbon credit program. His herd of 440 dairy cows receives the supplement twice a day.

Food additives help to inhibit microbes in a cow’s stomach from producing methane, which is usually produced as a by-product of the digestion of fibrous plant material like grass.

“It’s hard to make a living off dairy farming, there are bills to pay all the time,” says Joe Towers, who runs the farm with his brother Ed. “Carbon credits are a real opportunity … to offset that cost to farmers,” says he.

The food supplement has an additional commercial benefit for the farm. By marketing their low-methane cows, the brothers found a niche in selling premium milk to London coffee shops.

Mootral’s so-called “CowCredits” are not cheap. They entered the market in April costing about $80 each, with a credit offsetting a ton of CO2.

Forest compensation schemes, by comparison, cost an average of $4 per ton of CO2, according to research firm Ecosystem Marketplace. But Hafner believes there is a demand for credits that offer an “immediately verified reduction” in emissions, rather than those that promise future savings that they may not.

With companies under increasing pressure to reduce their climate impact, the demand for offsets is growing. Ecosystem Marketplace estimates the global voluntary compensation market was worth $320 million in 2019, more than double its value two years earlier. The Task Force to Scale Voluntary Carbon Markets – a private sector initiative – estimates it could grow to more than $50 billion by 2030.

So far, Mootral has generated over 300 CowCredits. It wants to create 10,000 next year and is looking to raise $2.5 million from investors to scale up the implementation.

Scaling up

But there are challenges. How much methane is reduced by the feed supplement depends on the breed and environment of the cow.

So far, Mootral has only done extensive testing on both breeds at Brades Farm, but Hafner says he plans to do more studies in different parts of the world.

Different feeding routines for beef cattle and dairy cows add another layer of complexity.

Still, Hafner is confident that Mootral will find a solution, and the company will soon begin testing on a Texas farm with 12,000 beef cattle.

Liam Sinclair, professor of animal husbandry at Harper Adams University, UK, says it will be necessary to monitor the effects of the Mootral product over time, as there is a risk that the change in diet could affect the cows’ digestion, potentially reducing their digestion. growth rate or milk production.

“It is also very important that the product is available and cost-effective in developing countries so that there is a significant reduction in methane production,” he adds.