McDonald’s in America has partnered with chemical giant Syngenta and international meat supplier Lopez Foods to reduce the climate impact of its hamburgers, reports AgricultureDive.com.
According to the report, the partnership will reduce carbon emissions by more than 164 000 metric tons annually and improve land use, and water and power consumption. Cattle farmers working with Lopez Foods, headquartered in Oklahoma City, will receive incentives to add Syngenta’s Enogen corn to their feed to reduce cattle carbon emissions.
McDonald’s is the first major food group to work with Syngenta in the chemical giant’s Feed Forward program. Syngenta aims to reduce the climate impact of cattle farming using innovative and efficient feeding methods. According to the report, Syngenta is also in discussions with other potential partners about Enogen, a hybrid maize that can be used for silage.
This corn has a robust alpha-amylase enzyme that converts carbohydrates into usable sugars faster and, thereby, energy more efficiently to dairy and beef cattle. According to Syngenta, researchers in a University of Arkansas study found that Enogen corn can improve cattle feed efficiency by about 5%, which could be highly beneficial to the environment.
“Such a small percentage might not sound like much, but when you want to improve the sustainability indicators of a complex system like beef production consisting of millions of cattle, it starts with understanding where the impact occurs in the product lifecycle,” says Marty Matlock, executive director of the university’s resilience centre.
If 1 000 cattle consumed Enogen corn through the McDonald’s collaboration, according to Syngenta’s calculations, this would lead to an annual savings of 196 tons of carbon emissions. This could, in turn, free up considerable land to produce other crops and reduce water and power consumption.
