Veteran Daily Mail correspondent Robert Hardman has written an illuminating piece about the effort to stop cows farting. Here’s how it begins:
Another week, another car crash in the world of marketing as, once again, a proudly progressive product launch smashes headlong into an awkward but immutable reality: you patronise the British public at your peril.
Last time, you may recall, it actually involved a real car-maker, as Jaguar rebranded itself with a new campaign featuring every colour and letter on the LGBTQ spectrum to show just how much it cares, while omitting to include any actual vehicles. Car fans have not stopped laughing (or crying) ever since.
This week’s self-inflicted disaster comes courtesy of several High Street supermarkets, a major European milk co-operative and a £23 billion Swiss-Dutch food and beauty corporation you have never heard of.
In just a matter of days, their “exciting” new eco-friendly cow snack has gone from a virtuous, planet-saving elixir for British agriculture to a pariah product painted as the new anthrax. Social media is buzzing with videos of people chucking “tainted” milk down the pan while rival milk producers have seen sales shoot up.
And after a 500-mile tour of U.K. farms this week, I have seen how the U.K.’s already beleaguered farming industry has been split down the middle over an innovation it never asked for – but may still have rammed down its throat by the Government.
It’s another case study for proponents of the adage: “go woke, go broke”. Still, one group are feeling very happy. It’s been a good week for vegans.
What a bold and brilliant vision it must have seemed when the consortium behind this latest wheeze gathered round the corporate conference table to brainstorm their new plan for the farmyard. With the blessing of the government, they would not only help slash UK carbon emissions but show a kinder, greener face – and all just by tinkering with the inner workings of the biggest methane generator in the British countryside: the dairy cow.
So, 11 days ago, Arla, the Danish-Swedish dairy co-operative which processes the milk from nearly a quarter of Britain’s 9,000 dairy farms and makes Lurpak butter, announced a new scheme as part of its snappily named “FarmAhead [sic] Customer Partnership initiative”.
It would be using a small number of its farms to roll out trials of Bovaer, a new additive for cow food made by Maastricht-based Dutch giant dsm-firmenich (a company so progressive that it has ditched capital letters).
When added to Daisy’s daily diet, Bovaer is said to cut bovine gas emissions from both ends by up to 30 per cent overall. Since UN boffins attribute up to 14 per cent of global carbon emissions to livestock, that equates to a significant saving – as Ed Miliband and his Department of Energy officials chase every carbon saving they can find.
It was launched with a video of happy farmers waxing evangelical about the Bovaer revolution.
‘We are extremely excited about this new collective way of working alongside our retail partners and the possibilities that feed additives, such as this one, present,’ declared Paul Dover from Arla, which supplies milk to Tesco, Aldi and Morrisons. At the same time, these three supermarket giants proudly issued a joint statement announcing: ‘It is this collective approach that is really going to make a difference.’
All could surely expect a few pats on the back. Yet the congratulatory champagne corks had barely popped at HQ when we saw the first inklings that the pesky public were not quite as ‘excited’ as they were supposed to be. Indeed, some were reaching for the pitchforks.
Worth reading in full.
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As usual —-Nothing whatsoever to do with the climate. The climate is just the excuse for the lowering of living standards and consumption levels because the UN and WEF say our lifestyles are “unsustainable”, and tragically our own Political Class agree. Miliband is rubbing his hands with glee at this this new opportunity he has been given to Impoverish us with his Climate Marxism.
Could they invent something to stop Miliband spewing out nonsense, I wonder?
It already has been invented.
A gallows?
A bacon sandwich? That usually shuts him up.
You beat me to it!
I quite like the Viking Eagle….
It’s endlessly amusing when these zealots run up against real people. Listen to Farming Today on the BBC, or other establishment outlets & you can hear the puzzlement in their voices, “but why aren’t the riff-raff grateful? How can the plebs question the benefits we’re bestowing on them? Don’t they understand it’s good for them?”
These people never meet anyone who’s sceptical of anything, & they simply don’t understand it when they do.
It is estimated that in the 19th century, when the American Government set about encouraging the extermination the herds of Bison which roamed freely on the Great Plains, there was anything up to 100 million of them.
And they were all burping and farting … so why didn’t we have a “Climate Crisis” in the 19th century?
This methane obsession is just the latest attempt to scare people into changing their diets and enrich Globalist/ Global Corporations …by two means:
Keep buying milk and milk products. Boycott Arla.
Absolutely. Millions of buffalo roaming the plains for years with no issues.
It’s a load of old bull. Boycott Arla.
I see what you did there, but you’re quite correct. 50% of the ‘problem’ is nothing to do with ARLA as they’re only interest in milk and it’s bye products.
There is no serious evidence that CO2 is a problem, and there is clear evidence that it is essential for all life on planet Earth.
There is no evidence that CH4 (Methane) is even as much of a “problem” in the atmosphere as CO2.
I very much doubt that dairy cattle produce a significant amount of CH4 compared to rotting vegetation, the (quite impressive) amount produced by termites and by other mammals, reptiles etc.
This wole exercise by the ARLA boffins reminds me of the campaign to give children and even pregnant women the jabba jabbas. Zero evidence of any benefit to anyone other than Big Pharma and their politician stooges. Great risk to ordinary people.
False flag operation!
Bill Gates is involved somewhere
Won’t be shopping at any of these three tyrant supermarkets anymore!
Methane makes up even less of the earth’s atmosphere than carbon does! 0.00017%
or 1.7 parts per million
Bill has also proposed the idea of putting ‘vaccines’ in food.
He’s wonderful ain’t he
I always like the advice of a computer programmer when it comes to my choice (or no choice) of food!
And a very bad programmer at that. Nothing he sold was fit for purpose and required endless fixes and upgrades (we were the testers), most of which had to be paid for. As a dodgy market stall salesman he is excellent. The sooner that piece of garbage dies the better we will all be.
The Cnut couldn’t even keep viruses out of Windows 7.
The thing is that Methane decays over about an 8 year period back into CO2 and water. We aren’t building an endless stock of methane forever, only the differential between eight years ago to today. If cows disappeared tomorrow, then all their methane would have decayed by 2032/33.
It’s the old story – they do it because they can, and not because they should. The Precautionary Principle is ignored as ever – anything based on the climate hoax, as is this, is by definition fraudulent – if it ain’t necessary, then don’t do it, Stupid!
To build on your comments – ‘they do it because they can sell it’… or thought they could! I hope ArlA and any others considering adulterating their base product ingredient have a change of heart when they see the sales impact…
We need more methane rather than less as Elon Musk uses it to power Starship, and if it’s the great hope for humanity that it’s being touted as it’s going to look a bit silly if there’s not enough fuel for it soon.
Along with the human health concerns and destruction of dairy farming concerns, it really bothers me about what the cows suffer as a consequence. Interfering with their natural digestion by artificial means will surely cause them discomfort. We will never know how much their lives will be made a bloated misery.
Where’s the ghastly PETA when there is a genuine issue to address rather than getting ridiculous over pub names?
MII – Missing In Inaction – total waste of space and other peoples money!
All could surely expect a few pats on the back.
A few ripe pats on the head might be more appropriate.
Immersion in a slurry tank might be more fun.
It’s time someone published the price paid to farmers with the amount supermarkets charge us. Milk, vegetables and meat have huge mark-ups just for distribution. In some cases their gross margins exceed what farmers get for 7 days a week 365 days care and risk.
Gross margins are calculated before costs and tax. You will find net after tax margins in retail are around 1% to 2%.
And… consumers decide prices not supermarkets.
Supermarkets control the price paid to farmers, which is just above subsistence, virtually no profit margin for the producers, same as grain and meat prices.
Its a national scandal that virtually no-one cares about, because food is cheap (relatively speaking) and how many people would be happy if the price of milk doubles (or triples) so dairy farmers can get a decent price for their produce.
It gets even worse, because the cost of this additive (of unknown provenance and toxicity) will be borne by the farmers, further eroding their virtually non-existent profit margins.
The aim is clearly to destroy dairy farming, and it seems all (natural) food production – ve vill eat ze bugs.
I’ve seen that working with Tesco and other big supermarkets – they are crazy level tough with suppliers, even massive ones, let alone small farmers
I agree.
But it baffles me why farmers shops and markets tend to charge high prices?
The middle man and supermarket have been cut out, so surely the farmers shops should be able to price competitively, whilst at the same time getting more for their produce?
The animal feed that fed the ground dead animals back to cows was also presumably passed by our so called health overlords as being safe. CJD and BSE later, who put their hands up for calling that wrong?
The MRNA products which again the human was used as a test guinea pig. the authorities said were safe and effective, well they had zero effect on a virus but have to date caused death, heart injury, neuro injury, infertility and turbo cancers.
So now once again we find we have been used by companies such as Mark’s and Spencer who didnt even have the decency to inform us that we were being subjected to a trial product in their dairy products, in order for that business to virtue signal it’s eco credentials to Government. Little concern shown for their customer. At least Tesco and Aldi did let the test leak out.
When will Governments and corporate bodies stop interfering in farming and what should be natural produce? They believe themselves to be God’s saving the planet one fart and belch at a time.
To me this is another Government strategy to kill the uk farms, and to stop the UK population consuming animal products.
support your local small farmer don’t let
these people control us through access to healthy natural food
When is society going to wake up to the reality that science is not a quick fix solution to climate change, to cows farting, to curing flu, covid, or cancer. The cure is to understand nature and work in harmony with it. Eat natural unadulterated food, exercise regularly and enjoying family and community are essential ingredients for a happier more fulfilled life. We have become far too dependent and obsessed with scientific solutions that very often cause more problems than they are designed to treat. As a civilisation we have progressed but we’re in danger of sewing the seeds of our own destruction, if indeed we haven’t done so already – e.g. bio genetic engineering.
There’s also nothing wrong with the climate. It continues to do its thing as it always has and always will – driven as it is by the enormous nuclear fusion furnace a stone’s throw away from us.
Climate doesn’t exist. Ever seen it?
It is an expression used for an average of all meteorological phenomena over time (very, very, long periods) in a region or locality.
Climate change is any trend away from the mean of those averages, but it must be considered over thousands of years since changes are non-linear, and can reverse with time.
It why claims of climate change in real time, or predicted ar3 bogus.
Science is how we understand the natural process.
Scientists consider what may be causing a natural phenomenon, develop an hypothesis, then experiment to test their hypothesis.
However science is ever a process, never a solution. It is not a book of revelation, nor are there any facts, just temporary theories which although they may be accepted fir decades or centuries, are still temporary as they can be replaced by new discoveries in the scientific process.
I agree with what you say, except that most people think that science and scientists are infallible, which they are clearly not.
Government approved scientists are the only real scientists and can always be trusted to be right about everything, always, because the government has processes to check whether the scientists are real scientists. If the scientists are bad scientists the government will identify them and protect us from them and their bad science.
This is science.
This is THE science.
And no proper scientist would ever consider themselves infallible
There was an article about it yesterday in The Daily Mail which had the line ……
“We are scientists, we deal in facts and we would never market a product that was not safe.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-14165711/Bovaer-fears-Government-giving-cows-controversial-feed-2030.html
Oh the irony.
In any case it’s a lie – THEY are marketeers, who may well have scientists working for them, but it’s not the same thing. And even the scientists aren’t the same thing when they are being paid by the marketeer.
There are no facts in science, just temporary theories.
Alas it’s tempting to believe these days there are no scientists in science, just charlatans and grifters.
“It would be using a small number of its farms to roll out trials of Bovaer…”
Company PR insists the product has been extensively tested on hundreds of farms in Europe with tons of research papers saying how safe and effective (Oh yes) it is – so why ‘trials’ in the UK, what is their aim?
I think to discover how gullible consumers (fail) and farmers (partial success, paid probably) might be.
But… 30% reduction isn’t much when considering that farm cattle are a small fraction of the total of herbivores roaming the planet emitting methane. And India…
For the Climatists framing methane as a dangerous “greenhouse gas” has not gone so will, given its concentration is a million times lower than CO2 and it relatively quickly breaks down into CO2 and water.
So change of tack. It’s not Daisy’s methane per se that is the problem it’s that pesky CO2 that it releases.
But the C in the CH4 being emitted from Daisy comes from Daisy’s lunch of grass which has extracted the C from the CO2 in the atmosphere as its cellular cycle, emitting O2.
When Daisy’s CH4 is emitted into the atmosphere, it soon breaks down into CO2 which grass then absorbs extracting that C.
So air > grass > cow > methane > air. It’s a cycle. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. The amount of CO2 or methane in the air is not being increased by bovine digestion, it’s a neutral, continuous, exchange.
Bovaer is just a another way of making money by deceiving the public using the Climate change scam as a cloak – to nobody’s surprise
The overall intent is to stop us eating meet by 2030. See the insane intentions below from a report funded by the previous government, only I guess it was actually the Civil Service pushing this. I don’t think this current attempt to stop cows farting with a questionable food additive is intended to do anything other than frighten people away from eating meet. Much the same as all the recent woke publicity disasters for the likes of Bud-Light, Boots and Jaguar are not really about promoting LGBTQ++ but clever methods of destroying large western corporations. Equally Covid was not really about health and well being but debauching nations currencies (Lenin) by stopping economies and paying people to not work. What a clever ways of bringing down western capitalism and it’s culture. Who will benefit from all this?
Even when you think something appears clear, question it and do not rest. Doubt everything that appears to be beautiful and true. Always ask yourself: “What for?”.
Don’t think that one thing alone is good; straight is not straight and neither is curved curved. If someone says a value is absolute, ask them quietly, “Why?”
Today’s truth may already lie tomorrow. Follow the river from where the torrent began. Isolated parts are not enough for you. Always ask yourself, “Since when?”.
Look for the causes, unite and dissolve, dare to look behind the words. If someone says, “This is good (or bad),” ask quietly: “For whom?”
Field Marshall Friedrich Paulus
Up to 30% less methane means that, under optimal circumstances, the amount of methane that’s emitted now within a day would – with Bovaer in universal use – in future be emitted in about 1.43 days. How’s that going to save anyone?
It is nonsense considering the scale of methane release on a grand scale on the Eurasian continent over the last few years. The average Englishman shits and farts himself to sleep every night with a stomach full of curry and beer. Far more than any cow I expect. It is simply an attempt to design a narrative that happens to coincide with population control. The desire is very easily understood. They are increasingly outnumbered. The only way to stop this is by a culling of the herd.
Negligible future warming from: CO2 – CH4 – N2O
As at its current concentration atmospheric CO2 at ~420 ppmv is already ~85%+ saturated, the Global warming potential of added atmospheric CO2 is now virtually exhausted.
As at its current concentration atmospheric CO2 at ~420 ppmv even doubling to 840 ppm would cause little additional warming, (a ~1% effect) but that CO2 increase would be a huge benefit to agriculture.
All attempts by Mankind to limit further CO2 emissions or other Greenhouse gasses will have no further useful controlling effect on Global temperature.
Any further actions by the Western minority of Man-kind to protect against a supposed Global Overheating Catastrophe by reducing or controlling their diminishing proportion of Greenhouse Gas emissions are self-harming and pointless.
These facts entirely negate the obsessive need to pursue any Net Zero policies.
https://edmhdotme.wpcomstaging.com/minimal-future-warming-from-co2-ch4-n2o/
UK cattle numbers are less than New Zealands and make approximately 0.6 percent of World cattle. Bovaer claims a maximum methane reduction of 30 percent meaning that if all UK cattle got it the methane reduced would be a mere 0.2 percent of World output from cattle. A great shame that these scientists can invent something of no benefit to cattle but cannot find a cure for Foot and Mouth or TB. Arla Greenwashing
Since UN boffins attribute up to 14 per cent of global carbon emissions to livestock, why are we wasting this green resource? Surely we should be introducing ECS (Emissions Capture and Storage)
That’s known as a tree or in quantity a Rainforest. No expensive government subsidised research needed