Dairy Sustainability

Dairy Sustainability

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Dairy’s Carbon Footprint. I chatted with Karianne Fallow, CEO of United Dairymen of Idaho about the overblown notion that the dairy industry is contributing to global warming. “The White House created a roadmap of biogas and energy future planning to reduce methane emissions from agriculture. During that announcement the White House formally cited the work for the Innovation Center for US Dairy because their work in sustainability has been so progressive. So what is the map for the future? The biogas and energy roadmap has developed in partnership with the dairy industry to accelerate the adoption of biogas systems and other cost effective technologies. For example, the recovery of nitrogen and phosphorus, valuable soil nutrients, that all has the potential to make these systems revenue enhancing for dairy farms of all sizes. It really has the potential to be a win-win. Let me just share with you that in 2009 the dairy industry established a voluntary goal to reduce its carbon footprint by 25% by the year 2020. And there is progress on the way all the way across the dairy value chain to accomplish that goal. Because of those efforts, and because of Kerry Farmer’s long-standing commitment to environmental stewardship, the White House strategy for agriculture includes a commitment to cost-effective, voluntary actions to reduce methane emissions citing precisely the progress that’s the theory industry has made.
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