People say that there’s always room for improvement. Notably, the dairy industry has proven this statement true, continuously raising the bar by making environmental progress. In a Nebraska Dairy Newsletter, dairy extension specialist Paul Kononoff of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, identified areas in which the dairy industry has been making gains.
On the production side, it’s no secret that today’s cows are making more milk compared to cows of the 1970s. In fact, milk production per cow has climbed from 9,475 pounds per cow then to 23,712 pounds per cow now. While this is a big jump, farmers are also feeding 42% less feed to produce each unit of milk.
Feed usage has also seen improvements even as land becomes scarce and commodity prices skyrocket. To save money, switching to feeding by-products as a less costly source of protein and fiber has become a popular practice. “By-product feeds now play a major role in a cow’s diet, and they also represent a means by which efficiency of human food production is improved. This is because when animals consume by-products such as distillers grains, almond hulls, brewers grains, or corn gluten feed, they are using a feed resource that, from a human perspective, would be an inedible waste product,” Kononoff said.
Perhaps one of the most significant environmental improvements has been the amount of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) the dairy industry is producing. Standing in second behind transportation, the world’s biggest source of GHG, agriculture as a whole produces 10% of the world’s GHG emissions. By using specific feed supplements that reduce methane produced from rumen microbes, as well as other tools like better manure storage and anaerobic digestion, livestock farmers have been reducing this total. “Over a 50-year period, national GHG emissions, expressed in carbon dioxide equivalents, have been reduced 42%. This reduction has been reported to be even greater (63%) over a 64-year period,” cited Kononoff.
Producing electricity, fertilizer, purchased feeds, and equipment often requires fossil fuels. Nationally, fossil energy use has been reduced by 54%. The installation of anaerobic digesters on farms has been a key player in this reduction, along with other environmental sustainability practices such as no-till and the use of cover crops. Another improvement has been in the amount of water used to produce milk. Although this varies by region, nationally, the use of water to produce milk has declined by 28%.
As the world population continues to grow, the dairy industry must continue to improve its environmental efforts. “The U.S. dairy farmer and scientists will no doubt be willing to face this challenge, and further improvements will be made,” encouraged the dairy specialist.
