Elias Uddin, assistant professor of animal nutrition, is an expert in the field of ruminant nutrition and life cycle assessment. But he didn\u2019t always plan to study animal science.<\/p>\n
Uddin was raised on a family farm. But he wanted to pursue a career in human medicine. Over the course of his education, however, Uddin drifted back to his roots, studying animal science focusing on ruminants.<\/p>\n
Ruminants are grazing herbivores, like cows or sheep, that have a unique form of digestion whereby they ferment their feed in a special compartment of their stomach called rumen prior to digestion thanks to microbes in their gut. This process allows ruminants to absorb nutrients from their feed. However, it also produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and emits through their respiration.<\/p>\n
While agriculture only accounts for about 10% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., a whopping one third of methane emissions come from cattle. A single cow produces an average of 350-500 grams of methane per day depending on size of the cow and their feed composition.<\/p>\n
Uddin\u2019s research in the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources<\/a> (CAHNR) focuses on the interaction between ruminant nutrition and climate change. He is particularly focused on cattle because, while all ruminants produce methane, cows are by far the most common domesticated ruminant in the U.S.<\/p>\n Uddin studies how changes to the animals\u2019 diets<\/a> can reduce the amount of methane they produce. More fibrous diets have increased methane production. Swapping out some fibrous elements, like hay, for grain can reduce methane.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can switch the diet to change the substrate needed by the microbiome to produce methane,\u201d Uddin says.<\/p>\n Changes to the animals\u2019 diet, however, is a careful balancing act, Uddin explains. You can\u2019t just take fiber out of the animals\u2019 diet beyond a certain level as this can lead to serious health problems and even death.<\/p>\n Decreasing the amount of fiber in a cow\u2019s diet can also change the fat percentage of the milk, which impacts the products farmers need to sell. Grain is also more expensive to produce, putting financial pressure on farmers while creating food-feed competition.<\/p>\n \u201cA farm is a business,\u201d Uddin says. \u201cTo survive in farming, you have to make your business profitable, and to do that you need to produce your final product in a cost-effective way.\u201d<\/p>\n Enhancing Cattle Diets for Sustainability and Economics <\/strong><\/p>\n Uddin also looks at feed additives that can reduce methane production.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, diet manipulation works,\u201d Uddin says. \u201cBut we also have to think about other strategies like feed additive strategies that have been shown to be very effective and promising.\u201d<\/p>\n One promising additive is Asparagopsis<\/em>, a type of red seaweed, which contains a compound known as bromoform that inactivates an enzyme needed for methane production by the microbes in the rumen. However, this compound can also be hazardous to human health.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to think about food safety for human beings and as well as safety for people who are involved with handling process of Asparagopsis<\/em>,\u201d Uddin says. \u201cBecause if a compound is coming through the animal system to the milk that means it\u2019s going to come to your food system, and it might affect human health.\u201d<\/p>\n Another issue is that the current infrastructure cannot produce enough Asparagopsis<\/em> to even conduct an animal trial.<\/p>\n To address this, Uddin is collaborating with laboratories in Connecticut and in South Korea to identify more readily available alternative species as well as methods for scaling up Asparagopsis<\/em> production.<\/p>\n Another limitation is that feed additives are currently very expensive. Without any kind of incentive, like a carbon credit, there is no financial benefit for farmers to adopt them.<\/p>\n Uddin is working to change this by combining feed additives to not only reduce methane emissions, but increase the cows\u2019 productivity.<\/p>\n A very recent study published by Uddin\u2019s lab demonstrated<\/a> that adding isoacids to cattle feed can increase a cow\u2019s milk yield by 2.5 kilograms per day while improving digestibility of nutrients depending on diet composition. Another article<\/a> demonstrated that isoacids supplementation can also reduce enteric methane emissions under certain dietary conditions of the lactating cows.<\/p>\n \u201cIt will not only pay off feed additive costs, but also provide additional benefits,\u201d Uddin says.<\/p>\n Carbon Footprint of Animal-Originated Products Using Life Cycle Assessment <\/strong><\/p>\n Uddin\u2019s research focuses on the whole lifecycle of a product. This approach measures the emissions produced by feed production, animal production, manure management, and fossil fuels used to power farm equipment to determine the carbon footprint of the product.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat it does, mainly, is to acknowledge the whole life of a product, in this case milk,\u201d Uddin says.<\/p>\n