Symbrosia
Ep. 39 Feeding cows seaweed to reduce methaneThrough their digestive process called enteric fermentation, livestock burps cause an astounding 6% of the world’s global warming. Basically, if cows were a country, they would produce about as much GHGs as the entire European Union 🐄. Founder & CEO Alexia Akbay and her startup Symbrosia found a solution. They develop novel seaweed feed supplements that reduce livestock methane emissions by 80%.
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Why We Made this Film
In the United States, there are about 90 million beef and dairy cattle. When that livestock digests their food, they have to break it down in their stomachs through fermentation because it’s more fibrous than anything you and I would eat. Through this process, they produce a greenhouse gas called methane.
Over a 100-year period, methane is approximately 28 times more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, and could potentially be disastrous if left uncontrolled. But with a growing global demand for food, cutting down the agricultural industry doesn’t seem feasible.
That’s where Symbrosia comes in. Alexia Akbay and her team utilize novel research that has shown when you implement a specific species of seaweed into the diet of livestock as a feed supplement, you can reduce their methane emissions by over 80%.
