A number of New York dairy farms achieve low greenhouse gas emissions due to sustainable management practices like growing a high proportion of their own feed and making the most of manure, according to new research. The findings establish the first regional baseline for dairy farm emissions using data from real farms.
In the study, published March 3 in the Journal of Dairy Science, researchers collected data from 36 medium to large dairy farms in New York state from the 2022 calendar year. They found that emission intensities were lower per gallon of milk than national estimates and among the lowest reported across continents. Those lower emissions were due mainly to farmers growing their own high-quality feed and using manure rather than outside fertilizers and manure treatment systems to reduce methane.
“The key finding was that New York dairy farms produce a lot of feed on the farm, and that’s a huge advantage for them,” said first author Olivia Godber, research associate with the Cornell Nutrient Management Spear Program in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS). “They’re doing a really good job of producing high quality crops with minimal inputs, and because those crops make good quality feeds, that is helping them get high milk yields which also lowers their emissions. This emphasis on good crop production is really helping in all the other aspects.”
Senior author Quirine Ketterings, director of the Nutrient Management Spear Program and professor of nutrient management in agricultural systems (CALS), said the lower footprint – and the research to calculate it – is the result of the farmers’ commitment to improving their emissions.
“What is pretty unique with this dataset is the fact that these farms are all willing to participate,” Ketterings said. “There’s a shared interest in learning, in knowing, an interest in figuring out the next steps.”
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