Joseph McFadden: A Cattle Biologist Explains Feed Additives (re-broadcast)

Did you know that India accounts for about one-third of the world’s one billion head of cattle? Last week on Sea Change Radio, we spoke to the head of Rumin8, a startup that’s working to reduce methane emissions from cattle. This week, we take a more academic approach to the cow burp problem – our guest is Dr. Joseph McFadden, a professor of cattle biology at Cornell University. We learn more about the science of enteric fermentation in ruminants, examine the various technological solutions aiming to reduce these methane emissions, and discuss the hurdles that the feed additive industry faces, and why they are particularly challenging in countries like India. 00:02 Narrator - This is Sea Change Radio, covering the shift to sustainability. I'm Alex Wise. 00:32 Joseph McFadden (JM) - We just need to have more investment, more investment in scientific research, to answer the tough questions when it comes to these feed additives, there's going to be a lot of high demand for various clinical trials to improve their efficacy and safety. And I see that improving, but I don't think we're anywhere where we need to be with the current funding climate - it's going to have to improve. 00:55 Narrator - Did you know that India accounts for about one-third of the world's one billion head of cattle? Last week on Sea Change Radio, we spoke to the head of Rumin8, a startup that's working to reduce methane emissions from cattle. This week, we take a more academic approach to the cow burp problem - our guest is Dr. Joseph McFadden, a professor of cattle biology at Cornell University. We learn more about the science of enteric fermentation in ruminants, examine the various technological solutions aiming to reduce these methane emissions, and discuss the hurdles that the feed additive industry faces, and why they are particularly challenging in countries like India. 01:56 Alex Wise (AW) - I'm joined now on Sea Change Radio by Doctor Joseph McFadden. He is a professor of dairy cattle biology at Cornell University. Joe, welcome to Sea Change Radio. 02:06 Joseph McFadden (JM) - Thanks for the invitation to talk. 02:08 Alex Wise (AW)  - For the last decade or so, we've heard a lot about the dangers of methane emissions from cattle, and there's people like yourself who are studying this phenomenon. Are some of the technological breakthroughs that have made you hopeful that we're going to be able to mitigate some of these methane emissions moving? 02:29 JM - So you know, there's a lot of interest right now in developing different technologies that can reduce enteric methane emissions. You know what I find particularly interesting is that these technologies have some efficacy already proven, meaning that depending on the type of perhaps feed additive that's being fed to cows. We might be able to see reductions anywhere from 10:00, but maybe 80%. Unfortunately, you know we're a little bit early in the research process to really determine if any of these sort of technologies are real solutions, right? And so, as a scientific community, we're trying to sort of take a step back for a moment and really make sure that our perspective is holistic. And in that we not only have effective solutions that reduce methane emissions from livestock, but also that these solutions are safe, safe for the animal, and it doesn't really modify meat or milk composition. So it's still safe for human consumption. And we also want to make sure that any potential technology is profitable for the farmer in order to ensure its adoption. 03:36 AW - I asked for some of the solutions first, but why don't you give us kind of a a broader scope of the problems that we're trying to solve? 03:44 JM - So you know, methane emissions represents about it's a high priority in terms of research, simply because agriculture contributes a large percentage of methane emissions from human derived activities. And, you know, one,