The US relaxed its approach to antitrust enforcement in the 1980s. Today only four companies process 85 percent of all the cattle produced in the US. They’re crushing small ranchers.
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Scientists at Denmark’s Aarhus University and the DLF seed corporation are using DNA technology to develop a type of grass that is easier for cows to digest, meaning less gas builds up in bossy’s belly. Bovine burps are a major source of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that promotes climate change.
The project, funded by Denmark’s Ministry of Environment and Food, uses genomic selection to determine promising grass strains for breeding. The project is expected to take about 5 or 6 years, so you’ll have to excuse bovine belching until then. Environmentally-anxious cowboys and cowgirls can follow the project here.
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Argentina raises a whole lot of cows, and they raise a whole lot of burps. When you’ve got four stomachs and eat plants all day, gas happens. That gas is mostly methane, and each cow belches about 300 liters of it daily. It’s a polluting greenhouse gas, but it’s also fuel. Argentinos want to use all that gas to power up their cars — or maybe even cook up all that beef.
More:
“Argentine scientists tap cow burps for natural gas,” Maximiliano Rizzi, Reuters
“El gas de las vacas puede alimentar un motor,” INTA Informa
Reuters video here
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“Let’s get this out of the way: Cow tipping, at least as popularly imagined, does not exist. Drunk young men do not, on any regular basis, sneak into cow pastures and put a hard shoulder into a cow taking a standing snooze, thus tipping the poor animal over.
While in the history of the world there have surely been a few unlucky cows shoved to their side by boozed-up morons, we feel confident in saying this happens at a rate roughly equivalent to the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series.”
— “Cow Tipping: Fake or Really Fake?” Jake Swearingen, Modern Farmer
Methane and other greenhouse gasses are heating up the world’s atmosphere, fueling global warming. 18% of those gases come from the burps and farts of the billions of cows in the vast herds feeding the world’s growing appetite for meat. Face it, Earth’s human population isn’t going to go Vegan, and cow-mounted catalytic converters just don’t cut it. What’s to be done?
A severe homeland security threat endangers rural America: farm animal video stalkers. A bill introduced in the Iowa State Legislature by Representative Annette Sweeney would forbid taking videos of animals on farms or in abattoirs without permission of the property owners. Getting busted for a first video would be an aggravated misdemeanor; sequels would be Class “D” felonies.
Not to be outdone, Florida State Senator Jim Norman introduced a bill that would make it a first-degree felony to photograph a farm or domestic animal facility without written permission from the owner. No photos from the road, either, just like at any other high-security area. Senator Norman has predictably earned the scorn of reporters, photographers and treehuggers; even right-wing militia members pronounced him a “jackass” and Drovers CattleNetwork observed “When Cameras are Outlawed ….”
A 2006 UN study claimed meat production is responsible for creating more greenhouse gas emissions than the exhaust of all cars, SUVs, buses, planes and trucks combined. Methane and other greenhouse gases are produced by cow flatulence and burping.
If you need to discuss it in polite company, the process that makes cows gassy is called “enteric fermentation.” Cow burps are “ruminant eructation.”
A 2009 study estimated that half of all greenhouse gases are generated by livestock. Investigators have been collecting cow gas emissions (methane and nitrous oxide) in huge plastic containers for analysis. People concerned about Global Warming have urged a reduction in meat eating in order to reduce the size of gassy cattle herds.
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