Christopher Pilny for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Move over pageant girls: Researchers at Climate Adaptive Genetics (CAG) believe they’ve found the real answer to world hunger.
Or, at least, the partial answer to it.
Dr. James West, associate professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University and chief science officer of CAG, has developed a way to produce white Angus cattle, an innovation he asserts will double the world’s production of beef in the next ten years. The reason being: an increased tolerance to heat.
“Black angus are by far the most productive breed of cattle that exists,” said West. “They grow to 1,400lbs in maybe 13 months. And they taste good. There’s a reason you’ve heard of Black Angus Steakhouse, and not Charolais or Hereford Steakhouses.”
If you can’t take the heat, get a new coat
The problem is, he continued, Black Angus don’t handle heat and humidity well, namely because their heavier coats are black or dark red, two colors that absorb a massive amount of solar energy and raise the cattle’s body temperature to dangerous levels.
Because of this, farmers in high-beef-production areas like Brazil and Southeast Asia tend to use Brahma (or Nellore cattle) instead, which are shorthaired and white, making them more heat resistant.
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