Study in Mexico to Save Climate from Toxic Cow Burps Sarah Kaplan - The Washington Post
go to original December 29, 2016

What's the fuss about cow burps? (Science News)

Earth has a cow problem.

Cows are ruminants. They break down food by fermenting it in a special stomach packed with microbes, then chewing it again. This process lets them get nutrients out of bland, fibrous grass, but it also makes them, ahem, rather gassy. A 2013 report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimated that 44 percent of the methane — a heat-trapping gas 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide — associated with human activity comes from the global livestock industry. Most of it is released through the animals' front ends.

Let me correct myself: Earth has a cow burp problem.

But atmospheric scientist Luisa Molina and veterinarian Octavio Alonso Castelan-Ortega think they have a solution. In a pilot study conducted at four sites in Mexico, they supplemented cows' diets with plants known to contain bacteria-killing tannins (the same bitter-tasting organic compounds found in coffee and tea). At the right dosage, these tannins disrupt the fermentation of methane-producing methanogens, without interfering with the rest of the cows' digestion. The plants were native to the regions where the study was conducted, so they were easy for farmers to acquire, and in some cases they even made the cows more productive. And they reduced the animals' overall methane emissions by as much as a third.

The research, presented last week at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union, signals progress on a weird but very important front in the fight against climate change: the battle against burps.

Read the rest at The Washington Post

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