But to reach the Global Dairy Platform’s goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 the industry needs to reduce annual emissions or find ways to compensate for unavoidable emissions.
There will be no one solution to reaching that goal. To reduce emissions or compensate for them, each dairy farmer will need to look at his or her own farm from many angles – from feeding practices to choice of cropping system to manure management. Climate-smart dairy involves adapting to climate change while contributing to farm income and food security.
It’s helpful for farmers to learn what others are doing, said Michel Wattiaux, a professor of dairy nutrition and management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He said farmers may be interested in reading “Climate-smart agriculture case studies 2021 – projects from around the world,” which was published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
One of the case studies features a public-private partnership in Switzerland. Farmers there are being incentivized by the Swiss government to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions through a set of measures that best suits their operations.
There are four greenhouse-gas-reduction measures covered by the public-private project.
• Increase the number of lactations per cow, thus reducing the percentage of non-productive animals in the herd – such as heifers or dry cows.
• Increase lifetime performance of each animal.
• Install biogas fermenters to convert manure into energy.
• Increase dairy-beef production by using dual-use breeds and sexed semen so animals may be used for both milk and meat production.
The project is a partnership between the Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture, milk-processor Nestle and dairy-producer-organization Aaremilch AG. The Bern University of Applied Sciences has been providing scientific support.
In 2019 there were 22 million kilograms of milk – about 48.5 million pounds – produced using climate-smart livestock practices on 147 Swiss farms. Possibilities to scale the project seem promising, according to the Food and Agriculture report. Countrywide implementation of the project could result in a significant reduction of overall greenhouse-gas emissions from the Swiss agricultural sector within a couple of years.
