Ranchers Speak Out About New Vaccine to Reduce Cow Flatulence

Cows graze in a field at a dairy farm in Petaluma, Calif., on April 26, 2024. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

A Bill Gates-funded effort to develop a livestock vaccine for the prevention of cow flatulence would face resistance if it were imposed on American cattlemen, according to ranchers.

ArkeaBio, the Boston-based developer of the vaccine, has already raised $26.5 million in venture capital funding, reportedly led by an investment fund founded by Mr. Gates. However, if implemented, the new cow vaccine could damage the American cattle supply, according to Justin Tupper, president of the United States Cattlemen’s Association.

“If it ever gets to the point where they try to implement this, I can tell you right now that American cattlemen absolutely will not accept it, no way,” Mr. Tupper told The Epoch Times. “If the public is properly informed, they won’t want any part of it either.”

Mr. Tupper cited the potential long-term consequences of altering an animal’s biological functions, which he says would be impossible to understand fully.

“Just when you think you’ve heard it all, they go out once again with a new plan to tinker with Mother Nature,” added Mr. Tupper. “It’s just crazy.”

American rancher Chad Sullivan told The Epoch Times that any attempt to impose the vaccine on livestock would run the risk of pushing ranchers into “full-on rebellion.”

“The preposterousness of it is beyond comprehension, and what we are now facing is really scary,” said Mr. Sullivan. “The majority of ranchers won’t comply. They just won’t put up with it, and the farmers and ranchers who put food on the American table are getting to the point where they need to fight back, and this would put them over the top.”

‘Redefine’ Agriculture

However, ArkeaBio claims its vaccine is necessary to “redefine” agriculture in order to lower the methane emissions produced by livestock from causing long-term and potentially cataclysmic harm to the environment.

“BEV’s investment in ArkeaBio provides the opportunity to address agricultural emissions reductions in a manner that is safe, cost effective, and executable at large scale using traditional agronomic practices,” said Colin South, chief executive officer of ArkeaBio, in a December 2022 press release announcing the venture.

“We are embracing the opportunity to work with the most committed investor in the climate sector to enact rapid and meaningful progress in the urgent issue of reducing global agricultural GHG emissions,” he added.

The release also quotes ArkeaBio partner Chris Rivest, claiming, “The last few years have shown that vaccines can be both scalable and cost-effective, furthering our belief that vaccines can be a critical tool when applied to the fight against climate change. With its proven scientific team and methane emissions reduction technology, we believe ArkeaBio has the potential to redefine the agriculture industry’s environmental footprint.”

For years, Mr. Gates has called for the reduction of methane emissions from livestock. In a June 24, 2019, interview with Bloomberg, Mr. Gates explained the need to “change cows.”

“The thing is that cows and other grass-eating species have a digestive system that emits methane, and methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas, and so cows alone account for about 6 percent of global emissions, so we need to change cows,” said Mr. Gates.

Mr. Gates, who is also an investor in Upside Foods, one of the two synthetic meat producers approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, believes meat alternatives are needed to save the world from upcoming catastrophic climate events caused by greenhouse gasses.

In a 2021 interview with Technology Review, Mr. Gates said that all well-off nations need to switch to be completely weaned off of living, breathing cows.

“All rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef. You can get used to the taste difference, and the claim is they’re going to make it taste even better over time,” Mr. Gates told the interviewer.

“Eventually that green premium is modest enough that you can sort of change the people or use regulation to totally shift demand. So for meat in the middle-income-and-above countries, I do think it’s possible,” he said.

The World Health Organization claimed in a press release last October that human behavior has increased carbon emissions, causing a change in the weather that “is directly contributing to humanitarian emergencies from heatwaves, wildfires, floods, tropical storms, and hurricanes and they are increasing in scale, frequency, and intensity.”

The release added that research “shows that 3.6 billion people already live in areas highly susceptible to climate change. Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year, from undernutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress alone.”

‘Leave the Cows Alone’

However, critics point to past models employed by climate activists that have been used to raise concerns but have been repeatedly proven false over time and contend that the methods employed by climate science alarmists are highly flawed, especially in establishing causal relationships between carbon emissions and temperature.

A paper published in 2021 by the University of Colorado Boulder, titled “Warmer Clouds, Cooler Planet” and subtitled “precipitation-related ‘feedback’ cycle means models may overestimate warming,” casts further doubt on the prevailing system of modeling.

“Our work shows that the increase in climate sensitivity from the last generation of climate models should be taken with a huge grain of salt,” said CIRES Fellow Jennifer Kay, an associate professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at CU Boulder and co-author on the paper, in a press release.

If Mr. Gates is serious about curbing emissions he believes to be dangerous to the world, he should begin by curbing his own travels, according to Mr. Tupper.

“There are more emissions when he gets into his private jet and flies around the world,” said Mr. Tupper. “Leave the cows alone.”