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Despite the difficult hurdles it’s faced building its digester system, California dairy is praised as ‘an environmental hero.’

Influx of younger dairy farmers bodes well for the economy and environment.

KINDERHOOK -- Eric Ooms remembers the financial “carnage” that hit dairyfarmers when milk prices soured as the recession took hold in 2009. “The price of our milk just collapsed. It was tough for a lot of people. “Now, the 37-year farmer is getting a breather as prices paid for milk have recovered to an all-time high. But he is hedging his bets, using some of that extra cash to buy a grain dryer so he can sell his excess corn for feed.

John Noble, a sixth generation dairyfarmer, got his first taste of the benefits of biogas about a decade ago, when he installed a small system on his Wyoming County farm.Now, Noble and a host of investors, including a handful of local farm families, are getting into biogas in a big way. Synergy Biogas, an entity owned by Florida-based renewable energy company CH4 Biogas, last week took the wraps off its new biogas power project, located on the 1,850-cow dairyfarm that Synergy owns in Wyoming County.

Dairy digester mixes manure with waste from local food processors to produce power.

Herds with 300 or more cows will need 180 days of manure storage.

Effective July 1, herds larger than the trigger levels will be required to have 180 days of manure storage, up from the current 120-day limit.

The program has gained widespread support from key organizations, including Elanco, the U.S. Dairy Export Council, the Center for Advanced Energy Studies/Idaho National Laboratory, USDA, the World Wildlife Fund, MilkPEP and the Dairy Research Institute.

The “30x20” effort hopes to grow the state’s milk production to 30 billion pounds by 2020, a 15% increase over the next eight years and a doubling of the annual rate of growth.

Spending time with Paul and Phyllis Van Amburgh and their five children on their Dharma Lea dairyfarm can make life here appear enviable.Sure, the work is hard and the days are long. But the Van Amburghs get to spend time together and they enjoy a close relationship with the land and their animals.But that’s the pastoral version of life on a small family farm. And the Van Amburghs, now in their fifth year, know that farming -- dairyfarming, especially -- is mainly about survival.