Livestock methane reduction has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons in recent weeks, with a barrage of bad press around feed supplement Bovaer (3-NOP) driven by misinformation that spread like wildfire on social media. So what, if anything, does this mean for other ‘chemical-sounding’ solutions in the field?
Australian startup Rumin8—which makes feed supplements containing bromoform, a substance also found in the red seaweed Asparagopsis—recently received approval from Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply to progress efficacy and safety studies in commercial animals to generate the required data for full approval for the commercial sale of feed ingredients in Brazil. This follows a provisional registration by New Zealand’s Ministry for Primary Industries allowing efficacy and safety studies to be conducted in commercial animals to generate the data needed for final approval.
Cofounder and CEO David Messina (DM) caught up with AgFunderNews (AFN) to explain why he believes the most viable route to cost-effective production of feed supplements to reduce methane emissions from burping cows remains synthetic chemistry, not seaweed, plant extracts, or biomanufacturing (a position shared by fellow Australian startup Number8 Bio, although they are not using the same compounds).
AFN: How did you get into the livestock methane reduction field?
DM: I was born and raised on a farm in Western Australia, did an ag science degree and was always drawn to new technology. I worked at a number of startups, including a seed company, then moved into biofuels before looking at what I saw as being the next challenge: emissions in agriculture.
I was talking with one of my cofounders, Dr Stewart Washer, who has a background in biotech and pharma, and we were discussing what is having the biggest impact on emissions in ag, and it was by far the emerging work on Asparagopsis seaweed for methane reduction. Stewart said, what’s in the seaweed, and can we manufacture and stabilize the compound? Because that’s going to be much cheaper and more scalable than trying to grow hundreds of thousands of hectares of seaweed.
AFN: What’s your approach?
DM: Everything kicked off when we realized we could stabilize tribromomethane (TBM), or bromoform, which is one of the bioactives in seaweed, and deliver that in multiple formats. So we can now deliver it in drinking water for cattle that are grass fed, for example. Most methane-reducing compounds to date have been developed and tested in dairy or feedlot applications, yet most of the global cattle population is grass-fed.
In south Australia, for example, we have high rainfall dairy, and in the north we have ranches of hundreds of thousands of hectares, a bit like in Texas, where cattle are grazing on low quality grass and range land, natural vegetation. So we knew if we were going to truly solve this problem, we needed solutions that would work in these kinds of environments.
TBM is a challenging product. In its raw state, it’s an unstable compound, which is why it’s taken us four years, and frankly, millions of dollars, to get to a point where we have a stabilized format of that compound that we can safely deliver to animals in very, very low doses and get 90%+ reductions in methane. And what we’re now seeing alongside that is productivity gains.
AFN: Don’t other companies already make TBM/bromoform?
DM: TBM is not a new compound and there’s no novelty in the manufacturing process. Where our IP sits is stabilizing it and being able to deliver it in a safe way to animals.
So we manufacture in Australia and in the US now, just for our trial work; we’re still a couple of years away from our first commercial sales. Some of the reason for that is because we are generating a product that will meet pharmaceutical grade standards, and so it becomes a regulated product. So in the US, for example, that involves the FDA, and in various other jurisdictions around the world, it involves different agencies.
AFN: Didn’t a recent study show that feeding cattle whole Asparagopsis seaweed is more effective for livestock methane reduction than isolated bromoform?
DM: Bromoform is not a compound you can just mix up in a bucket and test. It needs a lot of work to stabilize and deliver it. So in an experiment where it is not being delivered in an optimized format, I’m not surprised it didn’t deliver. In fact, if it had achieved a great result, we wouldn’t have a product or a business.
AFN: What kind of methane reductions have you been able to demonstrate using your stabilized bromoform?
DM: We’ve seen reductions in a feedlot environment of over 85% and that’s what we’re targeting on a long-term basis. We’ve done 24 trials around the world with another 10 planned over the next 12-18 months.
We not only getting consistently high methane reductions, but we’re consistently getting productivity gains of 5-10%. When you combine those two things and the fact that we can manufacture this product at scale, then we are going to have a very affordable product where the farmers will actually be making money.
AFN: Who foots the bill for livestock methane reduction and is there a clear ROI for farmers?
DM: When we look at the cost of the product, the expected performance gains, and the climate piece, the carbon piece [generating carbon credits from methane reduction] becomes a bonus and that’s our objective, for farmers to be using a product that they can make money from, their animals perform better and they have a lower carbon footprint.
I think widespread adoption will only be driven by a product that is profitable to use. But how you get there will change by region. For example, in the EU there’s an 80 euro per ton carbon credit. That’s very different to an unregulated US market, which might be sitting at 20 or 30 US dollars [per credit].
If we want broad scale adoption at a global level, then there needs to be profitability, which will balance out from productivity gains. And on the climate side, in less regulated countries, we need to work with industry so that farmers are getting some value from that lower carbon footprint, and that may mean forward facing food brands realizing that they have to get involved in either subsidizing [feed supplements] or charging a premium.
Our view is we need as many options as we can. There is lots of room for everyone.
AFN: How do customers and end consumers perceive bromoform?
DM: We’ve done some great work on safety and toxicity, which we have submitted to regulators around the world. And we’ve got provisional approval in New Zealand, and we’ve also licensed the product in Brazil as a feed additive, so we are getting good support from the regulators.
We are very comfortable with the micro-dosing, the control that we have, knowing exactly how much is going into the animal at any particular time or day. And the regulators are getting comfortable that our product formats are safe for animals and for humans. But it’s an ongoing process.
AFN: What’s your manufacturing and scale up plan?
DM: One of the benefits of using a chemical process is that we can use existing GMP manufacturing facilities with either no or slight modification to ramp up production very quickly.
AFN: How have you funded the business to date?
DM: We’ve secured about $18 million in funding from a variety of investors including Breakthrough Energy Ventures , which has been a fantastic shareholder. As you can imagine when they were looking at our business, they looked at a whole range of solutions for methane reduction in animals, and the reason they ended up backing us was because our product is scalable and low cost.
The other thing that appeals about our solution is that it works for the broadest number of animals, just not in a feed lot or not in a dairy where animals are getting fed every day. 80% of animals are grazing animals, so companies in this space have to be able to solve the problem for them, hence our water product, and we’re also working on an extended release tablet.
AFN: In the best-case scenario, when might you start generating revenue from commercial sales?
DM: 2026 is our target. How that plays out is somewhat out of our hands though as regulators will drive the timeline.
AFN: What are the biggest challenges you’re facing right now?
DM: Being a regulated product means we have to spend lots of time and money on trials to meet the various requirements, which is a burden for a startup. On the flip side, once we have those regulatory approvals, the market has a lot of faith in that regulatory process because they understand how difficult it is and that products that are getting through have been scrutinized at a very high level.
AFN: Who do you need to convince in the supply chain to get this off the ground? Who is typically the first point of contact?
DM: There’s no question that dialog has been initially been greater with the processors, whether that’s for meat or milk, as they are the ones talking to their producers every day, so think of any of the leading global food companies, who are working towards 2030 goals [to reduce emissions].
But as I said before, it has to be profitable for farmers, whether that’s from increased productivity or on the carbon side, as without their assistance, none of this happens.
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Author Elaine Watson
