Degraded pastures emitted significantly more nitrous oxide

• Cow urine — a minor fount of research in India for its medicinal benefits — may also contribute to global warming.
• The urine from the ruminant is a source of nitrous oxide emissions (N₂O), a gas that is 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.
• Most times, when cow urine is used in degraded pastures, which are also seen in vast tracts of land in India, N₂O emissions are tripled, says a study conducted in Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Nicaragua, Trinidad and Tobago, and published in the latest edition of the peer-reviewed Scientific Reports.

Less understood

• That cattle and livestock are a significant source of methane, a greenhouse gas, and therefore a contributor to global warming, is well-known.
• However, the role of cow urine is less understood.
• Dung and urine are commonly mixed together for manure in Indian fields.
• Since, India also hosts the world’s largest livestock population, as well as significant tracts of degraded land, the findings may have a bearing on nitrogen emissions from Indian fields.

More N₂O

• Degraded grasslands emitted more N₂O than healthy pastures because the vegetation in the latter took up some of the reactive nitrogen compounds and only the leftovers were emitted.
• According to an expert in India, India had estimates for dung and urine production per cow or buffalo or other livestock animals as well as their overall estimates for their populations as per 2012 livestock census, but the exact contribution of cow urine to the total nitrous oxide emission from India are not estimated precisely.

The Hindu