Gervais Family Farms and Peter Rainville’s Four Girls Dairy are two of seven dairy farms in the U.S. participating in the multiyear pilot program aimed to reduce on-farm emissions by 50% from a 2015 climate baseline.

To dairy farmers, carbon credits, or offsets, are best known in association with anaerobic digestion. These projects require big farms with significant amounts of manure and plenty of capital, resulting in credits sold to buyers outside of the dairy or even the food and beverage industries.

“Your Farm – Your Footprint” is a new initiative led by dairy farmers through Professional Dairy Producers (PDP) that empowers dairy producers to know and easily understand the environmental footprint of their farms.

Going forward, a dairy’s value will not only be determined by the quality of their milk, but by the scale of their climate impact.

There are several sustainability programs available for producers to adapt on their farms to receive carbon credits or some other incentive payment in return.

We meet regularly with our dairy clients and prospects, and compared to what we heard not long ago, the conversation has changed regarding what high-functioning farms are focused on today.