Sustainability

At a celebration at their plant in Twin Falls, Idaho, dairy giant Chobani announced a one-million-dollar gift to the Idaho Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, known as Idaho CAFE which is going to be a dairy research center with a groundbreaking on June 30th, Rick Naerebout, CEO of the Idaho Dairyman’s Association made some very poignant comments regarding a term that is used endlessly in agriculture…sustainability.

“This dairy and this research center is all about sustainability and the reality for our dairy producers that I represent… sustainability, honestly is not always the most welcome term. Because what it does represent for our dairy producers is typically the expectation that they have to once again figure out how to do more with less. And that’s the pressure that our dairy producers feel, and this research center is all built around how do we help give our dairymen solutions, how do we help them accomplish these goals. You hear almost daily somebody making a greenhouse gas reduction commitment out there, whether it’s a tech company or somebody else. What often is missed in that bigger conversation is those companies can reduce that carbon footprint to a degree, but the reality is they’re going to need to lean on somebody else to sequester carbon to help them get all the way to their goal. Those individuals that will help them get there are the farmers and the ranchers and the dairymen of this country. They’re the ones that actually have the ability to implement practices to sequester carbon. And that’s really what this center’s about, that’s what this contribution’s about is helping us collectively figure out how do we accomplish these goals, and how do we change the narrative for our dairy producers and our farmers and ranchers to have sustainability represent something that becomes an income stream for them to make their operation more viable, so they have something to pass onto their children and grandchildren.”