Ice cream firm Ben & Jerry's is engaged on modifying its cows' diets in an effort to scale back greenhouse gasoline emissions from flatulence.

Final month, the corporate introduced a brand new undertaking to slash greenhouse gasoline emissions in half on 15 dairy farms by the tip of 2024. If profitable, the pilot undertaking could possibly be expanded throughout its whole dairy provide chain.

It is a well-known incontrovertible fact that cows, and the animal farming business generally, play an enormous half in our warming planet. Globally, cows alone are thought to account for roughly 40 % of methane emissions—a greenhouse gasoline that's way more potent than carbon dioxide.

Cows
A inventory photograph reveals three cows on a pasture. Globally, cows give off large quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gasoline.tilo/Getty

The principle approach during which cows give off all this gasoline is by burping and farting. That is such a significant issue that New Zealand lately introduced a draft plan to tax animal emissions beginning in 2025.

For Ben & Jerry's, one technique to method the problem is to handle the flatulence earlier than it happens by altering what cows are fed. Later this yr, cows at some farms that offer the ice cream firm will start consuming a weight-reduction plan containing a small quantity of purple seaweed.

One purple seaweed provider, Blue Ocean Barns, states that it acts as a "burp suppressant" that permits cows to retain extra vitality from their meals.

Nevertheless, it's going to be gradual going. The seaweed complement is just not but broadly obtainable, although Blue Ocean Barns is scaling up manufacturing, Quick Firm journal reported. There may be additionally the query of regulatory approval for the brand new sort of feed.

Nonetheless, Ben & Jerry's says additionally it is taking different approaches to lowering its environmental footprint, together with serving to farmers implement know-how that may scale back the methane emissions given off by the 80 kilos of cow poop every animal makes per day. The corporate additionally says it can develop extra grass and lift the extent of homegrown meals that cows eat.

"We're working actually collaboratively with the farms to attempt to see what works as a result of we do not know what's going to stick or what's going to make sense financially," Jenna Evans, world sustainability supervisor for Ben & Jerry's, instructed Quick Firm.

In 2016, agriculture, forestry, and land use was the second largest supply of greenhouse gasoline globally, behind vitality manufacturing. Livestock and manure gave off extra greenhouse gasoline than aviation and delivery mixed in that yr.

As talked about, methane is a robust greenhouse gasoline. Though it's shorter-lived than CO2, it has 80 occasions its warming energy within the first 20 years after it reaches the environment.