Reducing Farm Carbon Footprint

Reducing Farm Carbon Footprint

Farm Name ______Producer # ______

Date ______

1. Starting point carbon footprint from COMET- Farm:

Animal Agriculture______Cropland ______

Farm Total______Date of report: ______

1. Area of interest for reducing carbon footprint. See next page for ideas in each area.

Circle one: Manure Herd Land Other______

1. Please describe what you are planning to do, and how it differs from what you are already doing. Please use guidelines provided in the next few pages.

1. Who is doing this project? Do you have any input from someone off the farm?

1. What is your timeframe for this project?

1. What was the outcome of last year’s project (did your COMET results change, did you change a practice or management on your farm, did you see a financialimpact on the farm business)?

Guidelines for plan to reduce your farm’s carbon footprint

Over the next few pages are some practices you can do to reduce your carbon footprint. They are divided into basic topic areas. For questions or ideas or to discuss other options, please contact a member of the Caring Dairy team.

Manure management – for these practices, please contact David Persons ()

• Lagoon

• Manure separator

• Digester

• Cover manure lagoon

Animal health, genetics and breeding – demonstrate how you are actively addressing, number of animals affected, total herd size.

• Increase productive lifetime of cows – decrease the total emissions per cwt over

the animal’s lifecycle – reducing the number of replacement heifers needed

reduces the footprint for those replacement heifers. Decreasing the culling rate by 5% can reduce methane emissions by 3%.

• Strategic improvement of forage quality – Develop a cropping plan to improve forage quality and show test results from forage at start and improved forage quality test. Feeding less but higher quality forage improves profitability and lowers your carbon footprint.

• Improve animal health – Develop a plan to reduce mastitis, lameness and other conditions that impact productivity. Provide:

Plan that demonstrates changes to animal husbandry efforts (improved sanitation, use of activity monitors, genetics to improve animal health

Land management–demonstrate how you are actively addressing changes to land management. Give acreage involved in the plan, and as % of total farm land managed.

• Improve pasture management– show a grazing management plan that

demonstrates a feasible stocking rate (2.5-3% of body weight in DMI of available

forage)includes rotations between paddocks at least every 3 days, allowsregrowth to avoid over grazing, and avoids grazing saturated and overgrazed pastures –include map of paddocks, acreage covered, % of herd using grazing.

• Increasing the acreage in perennial sod vs annuals–Provide:

acreage, and percentage of total acreageand hay or pasture land, and total farmed land. This can include taking land out of corn permanently, or changing the rotation to include more time in perennial crops.

•Expanded use of no-till –Provide:

% of total farm land currently using reduced or no-till, and % planned under project, as well as acreage.

• Precision farming: application of fertilizer and irrigation (where appropriate) – N from excess fertilizer use is a source of greenhouse gases. Provide:

Evidence of increase use of PSNT or other N-testing in growing season to increase N efficiency, and reduce N use.

• Cover Crop – Provide:

Evidence of increased use of cover crops (e.g., legumes in cover crops to reduce N fertilizer needs) or cover crop with deep rooted varieties

• Establish vegetative growth, especially trees, in areas where farming activities such as

cropping and livestock will be excluded, such as along riparian areas

On-farm energy management

• Implement on-farm energy production technology: wind, solar, etc.

• Go through an energy audit and implement upgrades

A little background:

The main farm sources of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) are enteric, feed production, and manure management.Northeastern dairies average about ½ lb of greenhouse gases per gallon of milk.

Sources of greenhouse gas emissions attributed to agriculture come from both on- and off-farm. On-farm emissions include methane emissions from manure, nitrous oxide emissions from manure, soil cultivation, crop residue decomposition and fossil fuel combustion, and carbon dioxide emissions from crop residue decomposition, and fossil fuel combustion. Off-farmemissions include carbon dioxide emissions in the production of electricity, fertilizers, pesticides, machinery and building supplies, and nitrate and nitrous oxide losses from leachates.

Here is a breakdown for where farm greenhouse gas emissions come from.

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