Giving beef animals red algae as a feed supplement can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions of methane by over 80 percent.
The world’s cattle account for a significant proportion of the emissions of the greenhouse gas methane. But if you give beef animals dietary supplements in the form of a tropical red algae, the amount of methane that they belch out decreases by over 80 percent, without the meat getting a worse taste. Researchers in the USA and Australia have come to this conclusion in a new study, where they have followed 21 steers, ie neutered bulls, over a period of five months.
Sophie Krizsan is Associate Professor of Animal Science at SLU, and she is not surprised by the results, but also sees the challenges of having a great climate effect in this way.
– The difficulty is to scale up a production of a tropical red algae so that it will be enough for all dairy cows and meat animals, says Sophie Krizsan.
It is also needed more research to find out the total climate benefit of giving red algae to cattle, especially given the energy consumption of growing, freeze-drying and transporting this red algae.
Source:
BM Roque et al. “Red seaweed (Asparagopsis taxiformis) supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80 percent in beef steers”. Plos One, March 17, 2021. Doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0247820