Environmental Protection Agency
The state agency that regulates Oregon’s $473 million dairy industry has given kudos this month to three dairy operations that have gone above and beyond the call of duty in protecting water quality.
About half a dozen smaller dairyfarms in the Shenandoah Valley will be subject to inspection by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the first half of May, valley dairy operators learned at an April 19 meeting with EPA officials.
If seasonally calved and housed outside year round, HoJos will produce 6% fewer greenhouse gases.
Twelve Pennsylvania dairy producers will join peers from 11 other states in a large-scale project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help farmers reduce greenhouse gases produced by manure.
New online tools can help Wisconsin farmers know when conditions are right to spread manure on their land
Oregon has adopted what some say are the strictest toxic water pollution standards in the United States.
The well-monitoring effort is the most ambitious in the history of California’s dairy industry, and is the first such program of this scale in the U.S.
Porter Family honored with Agricultural Environmental Management Award.
Method saves fuel, labor and equipment costs, also reduces soil disturbance and dust.
The show’s Oct. 5 program will highlight the ecological soundness, economic viability and positive community influence of St. Brigid’s Farm.
Midwest Environmental Advocates and their clients have paid Rosendale Dairy for legal and expert witness fees to settle the dairy’s claim that MEA’s claims are frivolous.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is requiring that 13 dairies in and near Chino take preventative measures to avoid manure runoff before the winter rains.
The Tillamook area producer agreed to restore and preserve more than 20 acres of historic wetlands to resolve a federal Clean Water Act violation.
Western United Dairymen wants leaders of the House and Senate agriculture committees to support funding for the USDA Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).
Digesters create renewable energy, better manage manure, produce a steady supply bedding, and lessen their dairy’s environmental footprint by reducing air emissions and odor.
Trump stated that Zeldin would “ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions” to “unleash the power of American businesses.” The administration aims to maintain “the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet” while pursuing deregulation.
The decision was expected, but it’s unclear who will succeed the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Spreading manure from now until the ground thaws have an extremely high risk of runoff.
USDA today announced deregulation of Roundup Ready Alfalfa without conditions.
Purdue researchers have delivered data to the EPA on a two-year National Air Emissions Monitoring Study on livestock farms.
Jerry Jennissen has proven that you can benefit from a methane digester even when you milk 150 cows.
In 2007, Cargill’s Environmental Finance Group began building a plug-flow digester on Bettencourt Farms’ new Dry Creek Dairy, a 10,000-cow operation near Murtaugh, Idaho. Since going online in September 2008, the 5-million-gallon digester has generated electricity for the Idaho grid, reduced manure odor, cut manure handling costs and produced digester solids for the dairy’s bedding.
One trip to look at an anaerobic digester on a dairy in central Minnesota was all it took to convince Lee Jensen that the technology would be a good fit for his 900-cow Five Star Dairy near Elk Mound, Wis.
Forage quality also contributes to an operation’s carbon footprint. We put significant research into selecting hybrids that give us good tonnage as well as high digestibility. If we can maximize forage digestibility, the cows will more efficiently turn nutrients into milk.
Today’s technology has greatly improved our ability to decrease our carbon footprint. As stewards of the land, farmers care more for the environment than anyone else in the world. We make our living off of the land; why wouldn’t we take care of it?
Carbon emissions and going green definitely seem to be tied to everything these days and dairy farms are in the thick of the debate. Agriculture as a whole has always been at the forefront of efficiency and maximizing productivity to survive. The economic challenges of this past year have put any and all inefficiencies and wasteful practices under a microscope.
I attended the Sustainability Summit for U.S. Dairy in June 2008, put on by Dairy Management Inc. The topic was reducing the carbon footprint of the U.S. dairy industry.
The Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Food and Drug Administration are working together to reduce food waste.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations pegs the global dairy sector contribution to greenhouse gas emissions (GHC) at 2.7%. If you add in the meat production of the sector, the contribution climbs to 4%.
Washington State’s Snohomish River just downstream from French Slough is once again meeting state water quality standards for fecal coliform and dissolved oxygen, according to Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) testing. French Slough was directly impacted by a large manure spill last week and continues to show evidence of water quality problems.