U.S. FDA clears methane-reducing feed additive Bovaer

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared methane-reducing feed additive Bovaer for lactating dairy cows, Elanco Animal Health said yesterday.

Elanco Animal Health is licensed to market Bovaer in North America. Canada cleared the feed additive and its active ingredient, 3NOP, earlier this year.

One tablespoon of Bovaer per lactating dairy cow a day can reduce methane emissions by about 30 per cent, or about 1.2 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions annually, the company said. Bovaer works by suppressing the enzyme in a cow’s rumen, part of its stomach, that forms methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

The feed ingredient would help dairy food companies to buy carbon credits from their own farms and create a value stream of $20 a cow, Elanco CEO Jeffrey Simmons told Reuters.

Feeding one million cows Bovaer would reduce emissions equivalent to removing more than 285,000 cars from the road for a year, Elanco estimated.