Garlic may radically reduce one of the main causes of greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.

As cows ruminate, they produce about 500 litres a day each of methane, the greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Animals are thought to be responsible for 20% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. The richer the world gets, the greater the demand for meat and diary products. And hence the greater cows’ contribution to global warming.

But now a company in Wales, Neem Biotech Limited, believes that the ’stinking rose’ provides an answer to the problem. It’s developed a garlic-based feed additive with the clever name of ‘Mootral’ (’Moo’ crossed with ‘neutral’, get it?).

Garlic contains a compound called allicin. In lab trials simulating the way cows eat, allicin was found to reduce methane emissions by 94%. In trials on animals, methane emissions were reduced by 15%.

Professor Jeffrey Stone, one of Neem Biotech’s directors said, “The field trials are showing a very significant reduction in the amount of methane produced and it also appears that the animals that take the feed also grow a little more as well as requiring fewer antibiotics”.

“There are lots of medicinal benefits to this feed apart from reducing the methane produced.” It seems that the energy that the cows normally use to produce methane gets diverted by the Mootral to their growth.

Prof Stone added: “We see opportunity for this in the developing and the developed worlds. Cows produce more methane in the developing world than they do in the developed world because of their feed”

It’s hoped that Mootal will be produced locally in the countries where it is used.

And Prof Stone has a novel idea for making money from Mootal:

“There is so much potential for this, it’s a struggle to work out the economic value of it.”

Prof Stone said companies wanting to mitigate their carbon footprint might be interested in investing in the feed. Mootal could then be provided to farmers for free. For example, airlines might encourage passengers to purchase carbon-offsetting credits which would be used to buy the feed which would then be distributed to farmers.

The company was a finalist in the Financial Times’ Climate Change Challenge, It’s currently in the final of The World Challenge Competition 2009.

I wish them luck with the competition, and more importantly, with the development of Mootal.

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