Vision-Aire Farms near Eldorado in Fond du Lac County, Wis., is one of several farms that recently received a grant from Dairy’s Foundation, and sponsored in part by Nestle, to help pay for the cost of learning their farm’s carbon numbers.

Janet Clark and her husband, Travis, milk 140 Holstein cows and raise 160 heifers with her parents, Roger and Sandy Grade, and her brother David Grade at Vision-Aire Farms. The family farms 1,100 acres, including 866 tillable acres that they own and an additional 234 rented acres.

The grants are part of Professional Dairy Producers’ “Your Farm — Your Footprint” initiative. Clark explains that there are three reports available to participants: Cool Farm Tool, Comet and Farm ES.

“Each report has slightly different data,” she says. “Cool Farm Tool is crop-specific and is the best to evaluate peer to peer. Comet is field-specific, and your carbon footprint is based on your tillage practices, manure applications and nutrient management plan. The Farm ES report is based solely on your dairy practices. You provide your milk production, rations and energy use on the dairy. Those are the three reports you can get from the information you provide. We found value in getting all three reports.”

Carbon-negative

Clark says their reports indicate their farm is carbon-negative. “That means we are sequestering more carbon than we are adding,” she notes.

Their in-field practice comparisons show they are removing as much carbon from their crops as taking 120 average-size passenger cars off the road per year.

“By seeding cover crops, we are saving 440 tons of soil from eroding, or the equivalent of 28 dump trucks of soil,” Clark says.

All reports are kept confidential and shared only with the participant producer. Clark says they chose to have a copy of all three reports sent to their dairy plant.

“Being a part of ‘Your Farm — Your Footprint’ has been a very valuable experience for us,” she says. “I was really surprised at how easy and straightforward all the data collection was, and how interesting it was to see how the report comes out. It is information that we can use. Maintaining that confidentiality was important. It was also super easy. All of this data was at my fingertips — our energy use, our cow data, our nutrient management plan. All of that information was easy for me to hand over.”

KNOWING THE SCORE: Janet and Travis Clark look over three reports that explain in detail what their family farm’s carbon footprint is. “Loading my data into the system was surprisingly simple,” Janet says. “Not too difficult or time-consuming. They asked for typical on-farm data we already had available.” (Photo by Fran O'Leary)

As they went through the process, Clark says they found out that they are already doing a good job.

“Now we can start looking at other practices that we can start implementing on our farm to do an even better job,” Clark says. “We can look at what others are doing and figure out how that will change our carbon footprint.

“What are the things that we are going to use to grow our farm to continue to be sustainable? We wanted to use that data, because now we can measure it and we can manage it. As a dairy farmer, I always want to be measuring and managing my data on my farm.”

Dairy farmers drive sustainability

At its annual Business Conference held in March at Wisconsin Dells, Wis., PDP unveiled its first-of-its-kind, producer-led sustainability initiative: “Your Farm — Your Footprint.”

Shelly Mayer, executive director of PDP, says it is frustrating for dairy farmers to hear all the discussion from the food sector about how farmers should cut their carbon footprint and their emissions by 20% or 30% when they don’t even know what their baseline is.

“This initiative, ‘Your Farm — Your Footprint,’ gives you the opportunity to know what your numbers are, and to not only be a part of the discussion, but to drive the discussion,” Mayer says. “This is an easy way to know and understand your farm’s environmental impact.”

The program works directly with dairy farmers to help them know and understand their carbon and greenhouse gas metrics, and to learn how to use this information to position their dairies for the future. Mayer says participants will:

“Professional Dairy Producers believes dairy farmers should be in the driver’s seat when it comes to knowing and owning their farm’s environmental footprint score,” Mayer says. “With this knowledge, producers can make informed decisions to drive changes on their farm and lead the industry discussion to reduce the environmental impact of milk production, helping secure U.S. dairy’s future.”

SIGN-UP IS OPEN: Shelly Mayer, executive director of PDP, encourages dairy farmers to apply for the “Your Farm — Your Footprint” program at pdpw.org/your-farm-your-footprint. (Photo courtesy of PDP)

Why do dairy farmers need to reduce their farm’s carbon footprint? Mayer says farm-level strategies will help dairy farmers remain competitive in both domestic and export markets.

“We know that U.S. dairy producers are the most productive and sustainable in the world. But our global customers want proof of our commitment to environmental sustainability and continuous improvement,” Mayer says. “Retaining U.S. dairy’s strong position as a preferred global supplier requires measuring and reducing the environmental impact of producing dairy products.”

Knowing is empowering

JJ Pagel of Pagel’s Ponderosa in Kewaunee County, Wis., is also participating in PDP’s “Your Farm — Your Footprint” program. The Pagels milk 5,000 cows and farm 8,000 acres.

“Sustainability is no longer just a buzzword,” Pagel says. “We can’t manage what we can’t measure, and here we are going to get a tool to measure our farm’s carbon footprint and get our scores. By knowing our carbon footprint, we have that baseline, and we will know how we are doing compared to other farmers in the state and across the nation.”

Globally, it is a very big deal, Pagel says. “Other countries want to cut their carbon footprint by 50% by 2030.”

EAGER PARTICIPANT: JJ Pagel, owner of Pagel’s Ponderosa in Kewaunee County, Wis., is participating in PDP’s “Your Farm — Your Footprint” program — a first-of-its-kind, farmer-led sustainability initiative that empowers dairy producers to know and understand the environmental footprint of their farms. (Photo courtesy of PDP)

By participating in the program, Pagel says he has learned some valuable information about his farm’s carbon footprint.

“We have a [manure] digester at our farm, and along with some of the other tools we use to limit our emissions, we are cutting carbon emissions on our farm by an equivalent of taking 686 average-size cars off the road for one year,” Pagel says. “We sequester about 900 tons of carbon from the atmosphere, which is about 48 dump truck loads. This helps us explain what a carbon score is and how much carbon we are taking out of the atmosphere.”

In addition to receiving their carbon scores and identifying methods to continually improve, participants in “Your Farm — Your Footprint” can share their findings and ideas in a producer peer group, where they can learn from one another.

More information about the program is available at pdpw.org.