There’s a rising urge for food throughout the meals trade for dried seaweed. No, it’s to not fulfill a classy weight loss program craze. Fairly, it’s an answer to sort out methane air pollution from agriculture.
Chipotle, Mars, Danone and Clover Sonoma are among the many market-leading corporations investing in styles of seaweed-based feed components to chop the quantity of methane produced by cattle.
Methane air pollution from agriculture must fall by 30 p.c over the following 5 years to keep away from worsening impacts of planet warming, which have already decimated agricultural outputs. Final yr alone, droughts, hurricanes and different excessive climate occasions value U.S. farmers and ranchers over $20 billion in harm to crop and rangelands.
However the trade’s methane-reducing problem is twofold: recognized methods can solely get us round midway there, and present applied sciences resembling feed components are costly. To make up for the hole and decrease the price, the trade must create new methods to boost livestock to make sure the viability of farms and farmers’ livelihoods — and the provision chain they feed into.
On the similar time, meals corporations must determine, incorporate and develop extra plant-based or different proteins to achieve their methane objectives and defend the trade’s long-term worth.
That’s the place methane innovation is available in. Scaling monetary help for analysis and advancing cures for taming methane can open the barn door to enhancing operational effectivity, increasing market attain and gaining a aggressive benefit by introducing cutting-edge meals and agricultural merchandise.
Main gamers throughout the trade have caught on to those potentialities. From dairy giants to meat merchants, corporations are taking three vital steps to capitalize on slashing methane.
Fund analysis and pilot tasks
Throughout trade and analysis communities, innovators are exploring pathways to stem methane air pollution from livestock. Including seaweed or different plant-based and artificial dietary supplements resembling Bovear — lately accredited by the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration — to cow diets is a near-term possibility, whereas vaccinations and genetically breeding animals that emit much less of the pollutant are potentials down the road. Firms can play a key function in quick monitoring these approaches to curb methane by funding associated analysis and launching pilot tasks.
Nestlé, for instance, is researching methods to deal with livestock emissions — the corporate’s single largest emissions driver — by way of its Institute of Agricultural Sciences, which is exploring methane-inhibiting feed components and animal waste administration. The institute additionally works carefully with farmers, universities, analysis organizations and trade companions to check options earlier than deploying them on farms in Nestlé’s bigger provide chain.
Put money into the startup ecosystem
One other path for meals corporations to leverage innovation is by investing in promising, up-and-coming methane applied sciences. Not solely can corporations money in if the merchandise are profitable, however the investments are essential to serving to startups overcome preliminary enterprise challenges resembling model consciousness and proof of idea.
Dairy large Natural Valley, for instance, has arrange the Farmers Advocating for Organics program, through which dairy farmers can spend money on tasks geared toward growing long-term methane options. In 2023, this system awarded Hawaiian startup Symbrosia a grant to check the viability of a seaweed-based feed additive that might considerably curtail how a lot methane cattle churn out. The grant funded a six-month pilot undertaking on a number of of Natural Valley’s member farms to guage the affect of feeding cows the product earlier than contemplating it for wider enlargement.
Take part in public-private partnerships
As we’ve talked about earlier than, meals corporations must work collectively to drive down methane air pollution from livestock. By creating partnerships with different corporations and governmental entities, the trade can work collectively to spice up their particular person innovation efforts, pooling sources and sharing classes discovered.
The Basis for Meals & Agriculture Analysis’s Greener Cattle Initiative supplies illustration of such a partnership. It’s a consortium of organizations and firms that shares information, sparks investments and accelerates analysis for mitigating methane emissions from cattle on subjects such because the cattle microbiome, methane inhibitors and breeding practices. Past these steps to trim methane from livestock, meals corporations may pioneer different protein merchandise to supply shoppers. Hershey, for instance, changed milk solids with roasted grain flour in a dairy-free chocolate, and Bunge sells a lineup of plant proteins that can be utilized in meat merchandise and as meat options.
With so many alternatives, the race is on to uncover methane busters that may make agriculture extra resilient. Meals corporations can set the tempo whereas unlocking the largest bang for his or her methane buck by plowing ahead with enterprise methods to fund innovation and help farmers and trade adoption.
