The biggest source of methane, a heat-trapping gas that contributes to our warming planet, is, by and large, agriculture, which produces 3.55 billion tons of methane per year, according to Our World in Data. Methane produced by the digestive processes in the stomachs of livestock, such as cows, contributes a large part of this number.
Scientists have been trying to solve this methane problem for years, and finally, a new American startup might just have an answer.
Hoofprint Biome is an innovative startup created by Dr. Kathryn Polkoff, an animal scientist, and Dr. Scott Collins, a bioengineer. The startup has an almost glaringly obvious solution to reduce the methane that cows produce while improving the animals' bioavailability.
When cows feed — typically on food that is hard for nonruminant animals, like humans, to digest — the food travels through the stomach's four-part compartment, first entering the largest of all, the rumen. Because of its capacity, the rumen stores ingested liquid and food for digestion, and it is also where the food becomes fermented by the microbes in the rumen. This fermentation process creates methane, along with other gaseous by-products, that becomes expelled through the cows' belching, or burping.
In approaching the methane problem, the scientists studied the source of the methane production.
"It's a very specific subset of microbes that are making the methane," said Polkoff, according to a TechCrunch article. These microbes steal any nutrients from the cow that have not yet been absorbed, creating methane gas.
To address this, the scientists created probiotics and natural enzymes to suppress these microbes and limit methane production. These additives would help regulate the cows' microbiome while encouraging the production of beneficial bacteria in the stomach to enhance their nutrient absorption.
According to TechCrunch, the startup aims to achieve a 5% feed efficiency that would help reduce the amount of heat-trapping gas emitted by the agricultural industry. Reducing planet-heating gas pollution improves air quality and human health while slowing the rise of global temperatures.
The startup has garnered $15 million in investments alone in its first major round of funding.
"We've spent thousands of years breeding the animals to make them as efficient as possible and to increase the yield, but there have not really been that many attempts to change a microbiome," Polk said, per TechCrunch. "That'd be like if you were engineering a car but had never changed the engine."
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No way 👎 Rumin8, an Australian startup, has created a similar methane-reducing supplement that also enhances milk production in dairy cows.
Although limiting methane production from cow belching is progress for a cleaner and cooler planet, it is only one part of the equation. Reducing dependence on dairy can significantly cut down on the amount of methane that the agricultural industry produces.
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