US FDA Clears Elanco's Feed Ingredient To Cut Methane Emissions In Dairy Cows

By Sriparna Roy

(Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared Elanco Animal Health's methane-reducing feed ingredient for lactating dairy cows, the company said on Tuesday.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT

One tablespoon of Bovaer per lactating dairy cow a day can reduce methane emissions by about 30%, or about 1.2 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions annually, the company said.

CONTEXT

Bovaer works by suppressing the enzyme in a cow's rumen, part of its stomach, that forms methane.

Methane is 28 times more potent in trapping heat in the atmosphere compared to carbon dioxide, though it lasts only a decade in the atmosphere before breaking down compared to carbon dioxide that lasts for centuries.

KEY QUOTES

The feed ingredient would help dairy food companies to buy carbon credits from their own farms and create a value stream of $20 a cow, Elanco CEO Jeffrey Simmons told Reuters.

This will allow farmers to quantify their emissions reduction efforts and certify carbon credits for sale, creating a carbon inset market.

Carbon insetting allows companies to reduce their emissions and carbon footprint within their supply chain or industry.

BY THE NUMBERS

Feeding one million cows Bovaer would reduce emissions equivalent to removing more than 285,000 cars from the road for a year, Elanco estimated.

(This story has been corrected to say that the FDA has 'cleared' the use of Elanco's ingredient, not 'approved', in the headline and in paragraph 1)

(Reporting by Sriparna Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri and Shinjini Ganguli)