Methane-busting seaweed aquaculture aiming for rapid growth in both New Zealand and Australia
Methane-busting seaweed technology developer, CH4 Global, has secured term sheets for the world’s first licenses for the use of Asparagopsis seaweed.
In New Zealand, CH4 Global is progressing towards commercial marine and tank-based seaweed cultivation pilots based at
Rakiura/Stewart Island.
Future Feed Pty Ltd, holders of key patents covering the use of Asparagopsis for the purpose of methane reduction and animal productivity increases in ruminant animals, and CH4 Global have agreed
terms for licenses which will cover sales and distribution in both the Australian and New Zealand markets. This is a key
milestone for CH4 Global that will accelerate the company mission to begin making quality Asparagopsis supplement available later in 2021. CH4 Global is urgently advancing plans to both aquaculture and process native Asparagopsis seaweed at its operations in Australia and New Zealand - these term sheets now provide the final piece in the
end-to-end value chain to provide market access to end-users.
Future Feed CEO, Andrew Gatenby, shared “Future Feed is excited that CH4 Global is the first company to have market
access through leveraging our key Asparagopsis use patents. CH4 Global is one of the global leaders in the production and processing of Asparagopsis and we believe they will be a key enabler to ignite the growth of a new industry leveraging our key intellectual
property to ultimately mitigate climate change.”
Trials in the US and in Australia in have shown unequivocally that Asparagopsis, when used as a supplement at 1 percent or less of the total diet in dairy cows and feedlot beef cows, results in
reductions in methane from 60 to 90+ percent. Over the next two decades, the impact of the annual GHG output of the 1.5
billion cows on the planet is greater than the annual GHG output from China. CH4 Global is focused on making it easy and
cost-effective for farmers to adopt this simple and viable approach to reducing agricultural greenhouse gases.
“Our vision is zero methane agriculture and access to these licenses will bring us closer to that vision”, explains CH4
Global CEO and co-founder Dr Steve Meller. “The impact of this opportunity to reduce methane emissions from cows is
larger than any other possible single intervention on climate change and we believe it is one of the only ways the
planet can close the emissions gap for the world to put the Paris Agreement on track towards success by 2030.”