Although cows help humans by providing us with milk, meat and leather, they are no friend to the environment.

It is well known that the gases escaping from cows’ and sheep and goats’ bottoms contribute to climage change. Nearly one tenth of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture and half of that figure comes from cows, sheep and goats.

Scientists have been looking for a way to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases being released by farm animals and it looks like they may have found a solution.

New research by Reading University and the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences has found that levels of methane and nitrogen emissions can be reduced by changing the food cows, sheep and goats eat. Giving cattle and sheep a higher proportion of maize silage, grazing them on high-sugar grass, and including naked oats (grown without the husk) and crushed rapeseed lowers the quantity of greenhouses gases released.

More work needs to be done to find out what are the long term effects of adapting the animals’ diet as well as how simple or expensive the changes could be for farmers to make.

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