The Bel Group, maker of Babybel, Boursin and Kiri cheeses, will encourage its French milk suppliers to give their cows a feed additive that reduces their emissions of methane, a gas with a very warming effect.
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Volunteer breeders who add the chemical additive Bovaer to their animals’ rations will receive a bonus of 10 euros per 1,000 liters “over the period of use, from the second half of 2024,” according to a press release from Bel and the Milk Manufacturers Association deliver it (APBO).
They explain that they recently carried out a test on five dairy farms “which made it possible to demonstrate the ease of implementation of Bovaer (…) in real breeding conditions”.
For them it is a “real lever for the development of a sustainable dairy sector”.
Cows, like other ruminants, spit out methane, which they produce naturally during digestion.
According to official statistics from the Citepa organization, cattle farming is responsible for almost 12% of greenhouse gas emissions in France, the leading European beef producer and the second largest dairy herd after Germany.
According to the Swiss-Dutch group DSM-Firmenich, which produces it, a quarter teaspoon of Bovaer per day allows an average reduction in methane emissions of 30% for dairy cows and 45% for beef cattle. According to his calculations, adding Bovaer to the ration of three cows is like taking a family car off the road.
The additive is made by heating nitrate and a vegetable alcohol “to temporarily bind them into liquid form.” The liquid is then converted into powder for convenient use in the ration, a press kit says.
During a press conference in September, the National Federation of the Dairy Industry (Fnil), of which Bel is a member, indicated that it wanted to work primarily with “natural additives” (a type of algae) against methane, as it considered that “synthetic additives”. (like Bovaer) would be less acceptable to the general public.
The Bel Group announced in May that it intended to “provide the solution.” [Bovaer] on every 10,000 cows that produce milk in Slovakia.