He points to a new paper that compares feed additives done by Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Re- search Organisation (CSIRO) which confirms this. He also adds, however, that “I would imagine any seaweed that stored bromoform would work.”
Scaling up at a rapid pace One group working to commercialize a red seaweed livestock feed additive as soon as possible is FutureFeed, a partnership between CSIRO, Meat and Livestock Australia and James Cook University with funding from various companies. It was creat- ed solely to support growth in the use of red seaweed to sig- nificantly reduce methane emissions by livestock. Eve Faulkner, FutureFeed marketing and communications manager, says her organisation expects commercialisation within the next 12 months. “Obtaining commercial quantities of the seaweed remains the largest hurdle,” she explains, and adds that the additive can easily be incorporated in the con- centrate of grain fed daily to cows at dairy farms and beef feedlots. Blue Ocean Barns, as mentioned, is a US-based com- pany also working to commercialize a red seaweed feed addi- tive. “We are growing seaweed in both Hawaii and San Diego, and already have begun the process of moving to larger tanks in both locations, explains CEO and co-founder Joan Salwen. “For now, those will be the two primary locations for our sea-
weed production, and we are currently negotiating expand- ing to on-land farms. We anticipate selling to companies by year-end.” She adds that in January 2021, the first commercial trial of red seaweed in the US was approved. It will be con- ducted at a dairy farm owned by Albert Straus in Marshall, California, and the additive will be fed to a subset of his herd this summer and fall.
Feed savings In their study, Kebreab and his colleagues also found that feeding red seaweed reduced farmers’ feed requirements by 14% with no change in steer weight gain. This basically corre- lates with a claim from FutureFeed that “approximately 12% of feed is lost as methane emissions.” Neither Kebreab nor Hris- tov has done any analysis of the cost of including red sea- weed in the cattle diet versus the cost savings of potentially feeding less feed. FutureFeed cannot comment on cost sav- ings that might result from feeding red seaweed and Salwen is not aware of any cost-based studies. However, Salwen says that in terms of her future product, “we’re still working out the exact pricing model and who would pay for it. Our business model is designed to ensure that farmers and ranchers − who are the most squeezed part of the livestock and dairy food chains and are in the best po- sition to be climate heroes − do not have to bear the full cost.”
▶ ALL ABOUT FEED | Volume 29, No. 2, 2021 27
Asparagopsis contains the ac- tive compound bromoform, which inhibits the production of methane dur- ing the cows’ digestion.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36
