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DFA plans to cut emissions 30% by 2030

The nation’s largest dairy cooperative has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent over the next decade.

David Darr, senior vice president and chief strategy and sustainability officer with Dairy Farmers of America, tells Brownfield the cooperative used 2018 data to establish a baseline for on-farm emissions as well as calculate the carbon footprint of their entire supply chain.

“This is voluntary, and we know how farms participate in initiatives like this is going to be different from one farm to the next or one geography to the next.”

He says plans include increasing cover crop usage, anaerobic digesters and other forms of renewable energy, improved cow nutrition, and exploring emerging technologies.

“U.S. dairy farmers are and will be solutions to environmental challenges.”

DFA is also investigating how to make manufacturing plants more sustainable and infrastructure improvements Darr says will play a major part in reducing their emissions.

He says this announcement aligns with work of the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy and its goals for the U.S. dairy industry to become carbon neutral or better by 2050.