Dairy MarketsThursday July 03 2008
Climate change is emerging as a growing and urgent issue for the dairy industry on both sides of the Atlantic.
An expert told a UK conference last week: "You cannot turn your back and walk away from the problem". While another 'Sustainability Summit' in the United States agreed a plan to try to reduce the industry's carbon footprint.
At the IDF Dairy Farming Summit in Edinburgh, experts outlined the problems for the industry. The FAO calculates that 18% of the greenhouse gas emissions in the world are related to the livestock sector.
Although dairy is not the biggest polluter, the production of one litre of milk creates at least one kg of CO2 equivalent, through the emission of methane from herds and from and nitrogen oxide.
Dr John Gilliland, chairman of the Rural Climate Change Forum, warned that global warming was triggering greater crop failure. This had put greater pressure on feed resources, which were already beginning to be squeezed by their growing use in biofuels.
Some, but not enough, progress was being made. New Zealand, for example, has been more successful than the UK in managing levels of emissions, although they were still high.
Gilliland, a farmer and former president of the Ulster Farmers' Union, said that during this century the average global temperature could increase by between 1C - 4C. And that each increase of one degree had the potential to reduce the yields of grain and milk by 10%,
He claimed that all governments had taken their financial hands off research. But research is more necessary than ever. Measures and solutions should be taken on facts and good science.
Among the research priorities should be: the more efficient timing of nitrogen applications; use of new crops and nitrification inhibitors; soil carbon storage and emissions; and manipulation of animal diets.
He is convinced that if the scientists and the dairy sector worked together they would solve the problem of greenhouse gas emissions and feeding the world. "Agriculture is the solution, not the guilty party," he insisted.
UK industry's aims
Jim Begg, Dairy UK's director general and current IDF president, outlined the UK Milk Roadmap – a vision of the dairy industry's environmental performance in 2020.
The Roadmap includes a series of detailed targets for every section of the supply chain. For example, dairy producers have committed to reducing the greenhouse gas balance (including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) from dairy farms by 20% to 30% between 1990 and 2020.
Additionally, by 2020 half of all milk packaging will be made from recycled materials, according to the Roadmap (see DM 947, 08.04.2008).
US action plan
At a US Sustainability Summit in Arizona more 250 dairy industry producers, processors, government leaders and academic researchers discussed how to reduce the sector's carbon footprint, while ensuring financial viability and industry growth.
The summit was the first to bring together the industry to identify and address sustainability opportunities.
Among the recommendations was a target of reducing energy use in the milk supply chain by developing technologies for next generation milk processing on the farm and in the plant.
Also there should be a mechanism, participants agreed, to optimise returns to the dairy industry from a carbon credit trading system that encouraged reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
Carbon emissions and energy efficiencies could also be made through best management practices and tools that calculate individual farm energy and alternative energy opportunities.
Other suggestions were to supply green power to communities by expanding the use of methane digesters and to stimulate development of low-cost, low-carbon, consumer-acceptable packaging.