Some weeks I struggle to come up with topics that I haven’t covered before or at least not recently. It’s hard to imagine that I have been doing this since 2013, especially since I’m really not a great writer, I’m a talker. 

That being said, this week a topic jumped out of social media right into my lap. I’ve mentioned Jeremy Clarkson from the British TV series Clarkson’s Farm before and, as I was checking X (Twitter) this morning, I came across a story about British farmers protesting the UK government approving the use of Bovaer in cow feed. I didn’t know anything about Bovaer so I had to do a little research. In simple terms Bovaer is like Beano for cows, it reduces methane gas emissions from the barnyard, so what’s wrong with that? 

The problem is that there has been zero long term testing on the effects of Bovaer both on the cows and on humans. If this sounds familiar then you are old enough to remember the issues with Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH) back in the 90’s. In 1993 the FDA approved the use of “Posilac”, a BGH, to be used in dairy cows in the United States. Cabot dairy cooperative in Vermont is one of the only dairy companies left in the US that requires their farmers not to use any BGH in their dairy herds so that their products can be BGH free. 

However the US government will not allow Cabot to put that on their labels, so unless you live in Vermont or have visited Cabot, you would never know. BGH was and is still being used by  mega-farms to increase the milk yield per cow today. The issue with BGH is that there is some residual that passes through the cow into the milk which causes young girls to go into puberty at much earlier ages than ever before. My wife was a school nurse for many years from the early two thousands until just a few years ago and she would see this every year. Back in the 90’s, I had an employee whose granddaughter at age sixteen had to have a breast reduction due to major overdevelopment. 

Now there is no proof that BGH was the cause, but even her doctor said it was the most likely candidate. I have four, soon to be five granddaughters and I’m concerned for there development as the years go by. In a story in Newsweek on December 5th, 2024 the FDA has given the greenlight for Bovaer to be used in the US even though there has been no long term testing. Bovaer claims it could reduce cow methane emissions by between thirty to forty-five percent. The Global Methane Pledge, one of the many new green initiatives, requires a thirty percent reduction in methane emissions by 2030 based on 2020 levels. I’m sorry but if cows were producing that much methane, you would would have some natural gas company teaming up with farmers to capture it. 

There is more methane coming out of the exhaust pipes at the Sullivan County landfill than out of the tailpipes of every cow in Sullivan County. Bovaer is comprised of silicon dioxide, propylene glycol and an organic compound 3-nitrooxypropanol (3-NOP). The U.K.’s Food Standards Agency last year, found that, “3-NOP “should be considered corrosive to the eyes, a skin irritant, and potentially harmful by inhalation” to humans handling it. But experts have emphasized that no traces of Bovaer or the compounds contained within it would be found in dairy produce, as it is broken down by a cow’s digestive system. One of these experts is Dr. Joseph W. McFadden, Associate Professor of Dairy Cattle Biology at Cornell University in Ithaca with their AgriTech campus in Geneva, NY. Maybe, Bovaer is safe, only time will tell. But as usual things are changing daily in our food supply that people are not being told.