Dairies Contribute to Sustainability by Consuming By-Products - Part 2

Dairies Contribute to Sustainability by Consuming By-Products - Part 2

Tim Hammerich
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
With California Ag Today, I’m Tim Hammerich.

Yesterday, we shared how dairies contribute to sustainability by utilizing at least 70 different agricultural by-products that aren’t fit for human consumption. Today, we focus on the importance of those by-products to the dairies themselves and the local communities. This is according to Scott Somerville, a Ph.D. student in the department of agriculture and resource economics at UC Davis.

Somerville… “If the supply of by-products into California dairy was reduced, feed costs would increase by 20%, which means that the cost of milk production would increase by about 10%. And that means that less milk would be produced in California.”

One benefit to being able to utilize these by-products with dairy cows is it creates a distributed system, that can easily serve the needs of the local community.

Somerville… “Most by-products are individually a small share of the dry matter in the dairy ration, and have important local economic effects. Which means that if you're close to a brewery, you're more likely to take brewer's spent grains. And if those weren't available, that that would have a large effect on your dairy business.”

Somerville and his co-authors summarized these findings and morein a recent paper entitled “By-Product Use in California Dairy Feed Has Vital Sustainability Implications”.

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