In Britain, milk from the Swedish-Danish dairy company Arla has been flushed down the drain in some households because it comes from cows that have been fed the anti-methane agent Bovaer. The feed was developed a few years ago by the Dutch chemical company DSM-Firmenich, and has been approved as compound feed by various European bodies.
Bovaer is successfully promoted and applied in many countries. The substance can reduce methane emissions from cows by up to 27 percent and is therefore seen as a means in the green transformation of agriculture.
Conspiracy theories have recently been spreading on social media in the UK, claiming that American billionaire and Microsoft founder Bill Gates is 'behind it'. He has previously been discredited by conspiracy theorists for allegedly buying up agricultural land around the world to gain control of the food supply.
But despite the fact that the drug has been approved by the authorities, and that several experts according to the BBC Assuming that there is no health risk, conspiracy theories are spreading on social media.
The confusion among the public is increased by the fact that several organic dairy manufacturers say that they do not feed Bovear to their cows, which gives the impression that 'there is something wrong with it'. In these cases, the organic livestock industry does not say that they do not add anything to the feed because of their qualification 'organic'.
“Our milk and meat production is based on traditional, organic pastures and non-intensive farming methods. Nature knows what it is doing,” writes British dairy company Hook & Son, for example, on X. In response, DSM-Firmenich wrote that the UK test “has caused untruths and misinformation” about the safety of the product.
Arla has also responded to the outcry in the UK. “The criticism on social media is based on a completely false premise that Bill Gates is behind Bovaer and that it would be unsafe for people to drink milk from cows that have Bovaer added to their feed,” says Arla CEO Rune Jungberg Pedersen. “Both parts are patently untrue, and it is crucial to us that consumers are not misinformed.”