A vicious cycle of climate change, cattle diet and rising methane has been revealed in a new scientific study: as temperatures rise, forage plants get tougher and harder to digest, and cause more methane to be produced in bovine stomachs. And with cattle numbers rising and methane 85 times more powerful a greenhouse gas over 20 years, that spells trouble.
A vicious cycle of climate change, cattle diet and rising methane has been revealed in a new scientific study: as temperatures rise, forage plants get tougher and harder to digest, and cause more methane to be produced in bovine stomachs. And with cattle numbers rising and methane 85 times more powerful a greenhouse gas over 20 years, that spells trouble.
Plants growing in warmer conditions are tougher and have lower nutritional value to grazing livestock, inhibiting milk and meat yields and raising the amount of methane released by the animals.
That's because more methane is produced when plants are tougher to digest - an effect of a warmer environment.
Read more at The Ecologist
Photo credit: Ssr via Wikimedia Commons
