News

Dairy FARM ES update released

The National Milk Producers Federation’s environmental stewardship program for farms, processors, and dairy cooperatives has been updated.

Nicole Ayache is National Milk’s Chief Sustainability Officer.  She tells Brownfield version three of the Farmers Assuring Responsible Management Environmental Stewardship (FARM ES) program helps answer questions they’ve received from farmers over the past few years. “A lot of farms wanted to run what-if scenarios. What if we adopted this practice or this technology? What would that mean for my farm? And, so what we had to do to help get those answers is actually turn to a new greenhouse gas model underneath the hood.”

Ayache says the Ruminant Farm System or “RuFaS” model allows farmers to run various scenarios before making management changes, and she’s hoping farmers give her feedback. “Does it give you some of the insights that you need or want when you’re kind of using FARM ES as part of your decision making process? Is it giving you some of that info?”

Ayoche hopes the FARM ES changes will give farmers, cooperatives, and processors the right tools to reduce their carbon footprints and benefit from the growing carbon market opportunities.

Audio: Nicole Ayoche discusses changes made to the FARM ES program with Brownfield’s Larry Lee