NYTimes: Pilot Program Uses Flax to Cure Bovine Burps

It’s an often-recited fact that livestock production accounts for roughly 20 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions in the US, but does it really need to be that way? Perhaps not, says a new report in the New York Times. According to the article, cow "eruptions" (burps and farts) produce 200 to 400 pounds of methane a year, but that output can be mitigated with a change in diet.

Factory farmers feed cattle corn- and soy-based feed because those crops are cheap, but the Vermont-based organic dairy producer Stonyfield Farm has found something that’s even cheaper and that will help reduce methane output: flax and alfalfa.

Fifteen farms in Vermont are participating in a pilot program to test whether feeding cows flaxseed and alfalfa, which "mimic the spring grasses that the animals evolved long ago to eat.

The results are encouraging. Methane output has dropped by 18 percent at one of the farms, and farmers are reporting that the cows are healthier. However, even though this appears to be a step in the right direction, these farmers are still working within the feedlot paradigm, which is exactly what organics seek to undo.

-Mark