Addressing dairy sustainability goals through a comprehensive and holistic approach and taking into consideration the entire operation as the active unit mitigating environmental impact is the ultimate way to ensure all initiatives fulfill the true definition of sustainability.

Progressive Dairy Editor Jenn Coyne spoke with Jamie Leifker, president of Truterra, to learn more about industry efforts to support sustainable dairy farming practices and reach goals within the dairy supply chain. 

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.

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.

Growth and transformation have been hallmarks of the biogas and renewable natural gas (RNG) industry in North America in recent years. New regulations, technology advancements and increased interest from a range of industries in carbon markets have fueled this evolution.

Dairy producers in Idaho and Utah are hungry for answers as they consider the viability of technology and other practices to achieve the industry’s 2050 goal to be greenhouse gas neutral or better.