What do cows and red seaweed have in common? Don’t know? Neither did I until now.
I happened to catch a wee story about red seaweed the other day that made me shake my head … so I just had to put it under the category of WTF!!!
It appears that scientists have discovered that feeding this abundant red seaweed to cows will reduce methane by up to 90%! Of course they have! Scientists have been working on creating environmentally friendly cows for ages. God forbid if a person is denied the cow juice in their latte.
The seaweed is known as Asparagopsis armata, and it grows in N.Z. and Australian waters. (It may sound like asparagus, but it’s vastly different.)
My first thought was – ‘Truly? Are they going to harvest this seaweed and make another ecosystem suffer because of the love of cow’s milk?’
But then I sighed a bit of relief when I discovered that they would grow and farm it like any other crop.
As I kept reading the article, I discovered that this seaweed is good for fish farming too. Because it is a plant that feeds on the nitrogen produced by fish, fish farms could potentially increase the number of fish they farm.
Dr Meller (from this biotech company) said
“So, it is entirely feasible that a fisherman today in Southland could increase stocking capacity, decrease costs not having to move those pens around and have a third revenue stream of Asparagopsis that we would teach them how to farm, that we would buy back from them at cost, plus a margin of profit.”
He also said
“There are no environmental impacts from farming the native seaweed, and growing it helps in a small way to address ocean acidification.”
Maybe it is a way (shrugging my shoulders as I write) to help with the mess in the ocean??? I just hope the government continues to encourage reducing cow numbers and not make this an excuse to keep or increase the herd sizes.
I want to see ecosystems return.
You can read the article here: Seaweed
STAY IN THE LOOP
