Professional Dairy Producers’ (PDP) latest initiative empowers dairy producers to better understand their environmental footprint. The Your Farm – Your Footprint initiative is a unique program that meets the growing need of producers to know and understand their farms' carbon impacts and take charge of conversations about dairy sustainability.
Here is what three Wisconsin producers have to say about their involvement in the pilot program, which expanded their knowledge of carbon accounting on their farms.
John Haag, Haag Dairy LLC, Dane, Wisconsin
Haag Dairy LLC is a 120-cow dairy operated by John Haag and his son Josh. The cows are milked in an automated milking system. Together, the Haags farm 200 acres, growing corn and alfalfa.
Paul Lippert, Grassridge Farms, Pittsville, Wisconsin
Grassridge Farms is a partnership between Paul Lippert, his dad, Matt, and brother Carl. The family milks 600 cows in a double-12 parlor. The Lipperts run about 2,000 acres total.
Brady Weiland, Weiland Dairy LLC, Columbus, Wisconsin
Weiland Dairy LLC is a partnership between Brady Weiland, his brother and parents near Columbus, Wisconsin. They are the fifth generation to operate the dairy business. Weiland serves as the dairy’s manager, overseeing the two 600-cow herds.
Why did you want to participate in Your Farm – Your Footprint?
Haag: We all know the dairy industry’s goal of being carbon neutral by 2050, and we know this type of accountability is coming. It’s easy to say that goal, but until you have a way to measure it and prove it, it doesn't really mean a whole lot. I want to get ahead and know my numbers so I can be as proactive as possible. Also, agriculture gets blamed a lot for greenhouse gas emissions, but the reality is that agriculture contributes less than 2%. Now, we have the numbers to back that up.
Lippert: As dairy farmers, we know we make the same from less or that we make more from the same, but we don't always think about it in a sustainability metric. Through other programs, we’ve figured out our numbers in the past, but we didn't feel like we had a well-rounded answer, especially when it came to the cropping side of things. This was a good opportunity at a fairly low cost to get some sort of a benchmark number on where we're at.
Weiland: We believe it is important to know our numbers, whether it is the cost of production, breakeven, milk and crop yields, and more. Honestly, the carbon footprint number wraps all those numbers together and gives us a score on how efficiently we are doing those things.
Why is it important for you to better understand your farm’s carbon footprint?
Haag: At some point, this is all going to be dictated to us from the top down, from the consumer and your processor. As producers, it’s important to know more about what we're expected to do in the future, and knowing our carbon footprint helps us better understand that and get a jumpstart on those expectations.
Lippert: So we can track it over time. I don't believe that I need to do it every year, not at this point. Maybe I won't use it for 10 years, but I have it in my back pocket. It's something I've measured. It's something to work from, whether I use it now or in the future, because we're running a long-term business here.
Weiland: You cannot manage what you do not measure. Like caring for our cattle, it is equally important to our family that we care for the environment the best we know how. We are still learning and growing as an industry on how to do that. We want our farm to be around for many more generations to come, and understanding our carbon footprint will help ensure that.
Explain the key findings in your involvement with the initiative.
Haag: We’ve been doing cover crops for about eight or 10 years already now. It’s nice now knowing how big of an effect that's had on our farm’s carbon footprint. The same is true for injecting manure and reduced or shallow tillage. We’ve already adopted those practices, but it's nice to see those are the right things to be doing.
Lippert: It’s not always the things in your control, such as soil type and erosion potential. How you process your manure is a huge deal, which is good and can be frustrating; daily hauling looks OK, digesters look good, my lagoon that I haul twice a year does not actually look good. At least if some day we decided we needed to do something, [manure handling] is a little bit of a black mark on my score. With this report, your ears are open to opportunities that might help you in some of those areas that you view to be issues.
Weiland: Essentially, it all comes down to producing more with less. Whether it be on the cow side or the crop side, it is important to not be wasteful but still get the cows and crops what they need. And, carefully monitoring our energy usage and implementing new technologies to cut down on energy usage where possible.
What most surprised you about the information collected on your farm?
Haag: I was surprised to see practices on the cow side of it are already contributing to a negative carbon footprint number. The agronomy side of it, we’re slightly above. Overall, our numbers are very good already.
Lippert: I was pretty impressed that they cared so much about soil types. Also, if you can change your efficiency of turning dry matter into milk, that's a big deal.
Weiland: Efficiency. The more efficiently you produce pounds of fat and protein, the better your number is.
How do you plan to use the information when marketing your milk?
Haag: I’ve already had a couple conversations with our processor, and they said it's probably at least five years out before they're going to start requiring reporting a number. But, we know it’s coming, and we’re just trying to get ahead of the eight ball.
Lippert: I do want to have that number in my back pocket in case my co-op or my milk buyer comes to me and says we need it. Or, if at some point, maybe I'm looking for a new milk buyer, and this is important to them. I don't know if that will happen, but I have it now.
Weiland: Know your story. This will only add to our story. It is becoming evident that dairy producers will need to understand and be able to explain and share their numbers with those up the food supply chain.
How did this initiative spark conversation among your dairy team about environmental sustainability?
Haag: It’s a shift in your mindset. We're not going to be making any major changes to our cropping side of things, but this initiative and the results of our carbon footprint are always going to be in the back of our minds. Every time we do something, we’re now thinking, “How is this affecting the carbon footprint?”
Lippert: We're doing a methane project that kind of grew out of this, just as an aside. Through my brother, I was connected with somebody who lives in the startup space. Maybe if we hadn't done this, I'd have been a little bit more leery about doing some sort of a project that I didn't really understand the ins and outs of. But since we’ve been through this and other PDP programs, I felt like I had enough of a comfort level that I could do this without having some huge blind spots.
Weiland: We have been hearing the buzzword "sustainability" for some time now but had very little knowledge of what that meant. This really helped open our eyes and understand how to measure and manage it. One of the other things our team really appreciates is participating in peer group discussions. Having conversations with the others involved in Your Farm – Your Footprint has really opened our eyes to additional measures that could work on our farm.
