Effort to feed seaweed to burping cows gets research boost

An effort to mitigate the effects of livestock operations on climate change is getting a boost in the form of a $50,000 research grant.

The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research is giving the $50,000 grant to Elm Innovations and the University of California, Davis. The money will help pay for an investigation into the potential for cutting methane emissions from dairy cows by including a kind of red seaweed in their diets.

Cows release methane when they burp, and it's a significant greenhouse gas.

The possibility of feeding seaweed to cows is a growing research interest for scientists and members of industry. One company, Australis Aquaculture of Greenfield, Massachusetts, is doing research as part of an effort to become the first farm to produce the seaweed at commercial scale.