I'm seeing a recent uptick in articles about feed additives for cattle to reduce #methane emissions. I've been following the story for about a decade and I'm increasingly convinced that it's a media strategy by the #livestock industry to convince people that #beef and #dairy are fine, actually, rather than a genuine attempt to tackle the emissions of the sector.
There are several important caveats to keep in mind whenever reading one of these articles:
Feed additives only work in feedlots. While feedlot finished beef is very common in Australia, the bulk of the emissions come from animals who are on pasture. The only way this technology could feasibly put a dent into the Australian livestock sector's emissions would be a radical intensification of the beef industry, which needless to say would be terrible for animal welfare.
A decade ago, the feed additives were a few years away from mainstream adoption by farmers. A decade later, we're still getting news stories about trials and how the tech is a few years away from mainstream adoption by farmers.
The dramatic reductions seen in early studies just didn't hold up in larger studies. We often see this pattern with new solutions where larger and larger studies show smaller and smaller effects. Even if the effects hold up at the rate that the most recent studies show, beef would still be the most climate intensive food in common consumption (with the possible exception of lamb/mutton).
Livestock also has enormous land use emissions (which are counted in Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry rather than Agriculture so they're hidden by the carbon sink that is our forests unless you dig down into the figures). Feed additives do nothing to address these directly (intensification would reduce this, but again this would have significant animal welfare consequences and there are few people in the industry are willing to openly advocate removing cattle from pasture).
#asparagopsis #agriculture #vegan #ClimateChange
Possum Pete
Tim Westcott
beforewisdom 
CellBioNews