In what could come as a huge boost to the activists campaigning against the slaughter of cows, scientists at Gujarat’s Junagadh Agricultural University (JAU) claim to have discovered gold in cow urine. For now, they claim that the precious metal is found only in the Gir cows that are native to the state.
A team led by Dr BA Golakia, the head of JAU’s biotechnology department, have been carrying out the landmark study for the last four years before they were able to confirm the remarkable finding. As part of the research, urine samples of 400 Gir cows were tested at the Food Testing Laboratory of the JAU.
“We started the research almost four years back and tested cows from different age groups including pregnant cows, calfs, aged cows and the milking ones. The amount of gold presence varied in all of them — from 3 milligram to 10 milligram per one litre of urine to be exact,” Dr Golakia told ScoopWhoop in a telephonic interview.
He said that they took some time to come to a conclusion as they wanted to see how often the presence of gold was detected in cow urine. The team also conducted tests on the urine of other animals like goat, camel, sheep and buffaloes, but traces of gold were only found in Gir cow urine. But Golakia’s not ruling out that other cows are just aren’t yielding the precious metal in their urine.
“There is a possibility of presence of gold in other breeds of cows as well but then tests have to be conducted at local level in different states,” Dr Golakia said.
So what will be the approximate value of gold extracted from cow urine?
According to Dr Golakia, the value of the gold extracted from 1 litre of cow urine would be around Rs 30.
But the procedure to extract gold is around Rs 10, so the net worth of gold extracted would be around Rs 20, Golakia said. The gold from the urine can be extracted and solidified using chemical processes that would require a laboratory.
However, the researchers have not been able to explain why traces of gold are being found in cow urine.
And there are other benefits, says the head of the project
Apart from gold, cow urine also contains very small amounts of Silver, Phosphorous, Calcium and Boron. Not only that, as many as 5,000 compounds were also found in Gir cow urine, of which 388 have medicinal value.
More than 14 compounds can cure brain-related diseases and 28 compounds can be used in anti-diabetic medicines, claims Dr Golakia.
Saving the cows
Dr Golakia said that the amount of gold can be extracted from 10,000 litres of cow urine is adequate for buying food for the cattle and to ensure their maintenance.
“It will be a huge advantage to people associated with the whole business,” he said.