Feed and forage production
Soil carbon sequestration: Carbon sequestration is an expanding opportunity for the agriculture sector. The first soil carbon credits were issued in June 2022, and multiple companies are pursuing soil carbon projects. These projects pay farmers for implementing practices such as no or low tillage, cover crops, and precision fertilizer application. The challenge for soil carbon is that significant acreage is required to generate cost effective projects. Organizations with strong farmer relationships, such as crop advisors at crop input companies, are strategically positioned to help develop these projects. Diets: There are three key diet-related opportunities that maintain or increase milk production while reducing GHG emissions: ration formulation, forage management, and concentrate management. Ration formulation focuses on the basic concepts of rumen function and dairy cow nutrition requirements. Forage management centers on increasing productivity by feeding high-quality forage to promote feed intake and ration digestibility. Concentrate management addresses the needs for carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, and by-products. Improvements to diets include feed additives that inhibit CH4 generating pathways (see the Enteric Fermentation section for more detail on feed additives) . Manure Digester development: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) AgSTARLivestock Anaerobic Digester Database 4 provides key information on anaerobic digester projects on livestock farms in the U.S. The bulk of digester projects are on dairy farms because wet, scraped manure from freestall barns at ~10 percent total solids is ideal feedstock for making biogas in heated, mixed digesters or even in covered lagoons in warm places like the Central Valley of California. In the past few years,
GHG REDUCTION OPPORTUNITIES
Quantifying GHG emissions is just the first step on the sustainability journey for dairies. Once dairy farmers know their largest source(s) of emissions, they can identify and implement practices to reduce those emissions if they provide a payback. The following section of this report provides an overview of the key reduction opportunities.
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