It turns out burps can be big business. Recent research has shown promising results that when seaweed is fed to cows, their burbs, belches, and flatulence are all reduced. CCN recently reported, “Billionaire Gill Bates has announced an investment in Australian start-up Rumin8, which is developing a seaweed-based feed to reduce the methane emissions cows produce through their burps and, to a lesser extent, farts.”
On the heels of this discovery and with that announcement, our ever-enthusiastic Premier Ebbie announced B.C. will go one step better. “We have the unemployed workforce ready to do the work, we have thousands of hectares of coastal waters, and dozens of communities not contributing anything to our economy, and hundreds of thousands of cattle needing to be fed,” he said and then announced that B.C. has created the “Weed to Feed” program and will immediately begin funding with an initial investment of $10 million. He further explained that, “By growing more seaweed in our coastal waters, we will create thousands of new jobs for all our unemployed fish farmers and coastal forest workers.”
“Timing couldn’t be better,” said Jobs Minister Braille. “Just as we have been closing down all our fish farms and shuttering our forest industry and putting all those fishers and loggers on the unemployment lines, this once in a lifetime opportunity pops up and we can now put them all back to work and doing something good for our environment.” And she went on to say, “As this ramps up, we will be rolling out more incentives to convert all those parked logging trucks so they are able to haul those tonnes and tonnes of seaweed to the interior where most of our cattle live.”
Minister of Agriculture Popgun explained, “Although the rest of the world may look for synthesized seaweed for cows as the solution, we believe that our cows should get the real thing, so rather than fund a foreign corporation, we will keep our money here at home.” She added, “The next step will be to make this a year round program and make our cattle the greenest and cleanest in the industry. We will be taking the next steps to getting our cows and their manure off the range and back home to where they can enjoy their seaweed year-round.”
A “win, win for everyone” says Environment Minister Hay Man. “More green jobs and less brown methane in our environment is always a good thing.”
When asked about the fiscal implications, Finance Minister Contrary referred to some countries like New Zealand, looking to introduce legislation to tax farmers for every cow burp. “We would never do that,” she said. “Our government would never be that insensitive to the plight of our livestock producers, and besides, all that would do is drive up the price of a good rib steak and force people to eat more of those veggie-meats.”
When we reached out to CEO Angus Black of the Kiskatinaw Cattle Co. for comment, all he would say is “sounds like more BS to me.”
Happy April Fools. Evan Saugstad lives and writes in Fort St. John
