Dairy Feed in Focus Program
Background
Feed is an important component of dairy operations, and many operations grow their own feed for their livestock. Feed can have a large carbon footprint associated with it; however, best management practices (BMPs) can reduce the carbon impacts of feed production.
The Project
The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has been leading an effort called the Dairy Feed in Focus (FIF) Program that aims to scale the adoption of BMPs in feed/forage production and feed efficiency for dairy farmers as well as serve as a replicable model for program development.
In collaboration with TNC, HEI conducted greenhouse gas (GHG) assessments on 26 dairy farms participating in the FIF program.
These farm assessments ranged between 2-4 years based on available data. We completed the assessments as a field-to-gate analyses, which includes all emissions starting in the fields with growing crops until the product leaves the farm gates. To do this, we used three models: Manure DNDC, DNDC, and COMET-Energy.
HEI produced outcomes to help the FIF better understand their participating farms in detail:
- Carbon intensity (CI; GHG emissions per unit of milk) scores for milk on all farms
- Per animal/milking cow carbon footprint
- CI scores (GHG emissions per unit of feed) of common feed ingredients use on the FIF farms
- Individual farm breakdown, as well as project statistics for better insight into regional variation
Additionally, HEI provided an analysis of BMPs that have the largest impacts on CI scores as well as those that provided the greatest benefit.
HEI continues to support the FIF program by helping the client better understand sustainability on participating farms, as well as developing methods to improve the scores in future years.
- Industry-aligned field-to-gate GHG assessments of 26 dairy operations across the US to help the client gather clear snapshot of the CI of milk and feed produced on these farms.
- Analysis of BMPs and their impacts on both milk and feed CI scores on a varied set of operations.
- Provided a detailed, full-project report to provide valuable insight into the FIF programs as well as individual farmer reports to provide operators with a detailed look at the GHG footprint of their farm and paths of improvement through BMP implementation.
Project Details
Location: Nationwide USA
Project Highlights
- Industry-aligned field-to-gate GHG assessments of 26 dairy operations across the US to help the client gather clear snapshot of the CI of milk and feed produced on these farms.
- Analysis of BMPs and their impacts on both milk and feed CI scores on a varied set of operations.
- Provided a detailed, full-project report to provide valuable insight into the FIF programs as well as individual farmer reports to provide operators with a detailed look at the GHG footprint of their farm and paths of improvement through BMP implementation.
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