GLENDALE, Ariz. – Dairy industry leaders discussed
how USDA Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities projects can help secure a
climate smart and profitable future for farmers during the Dairy Sustainability
Alliance® Fall Meeting.
The Alliance, formed through the checkoff-founded
Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, consists of companies and organizations
across the dairy community and others who want to contribute to dairy’s social
responsibility journey. Nearly 300 industry stakeholders, including about 30
farmers, attended the Nov. 15 meeting.
Mike Haddad, who serves as chair of the Innovation Center
for U.S. Dairy and chair of Schreiber Foods Inc., opened the meeting with a
message of how industry unity and alignment on sustainability goals can help
secure a bright future for dairy.
“What we’re truly, ultimately after is trust,” Haddad
said. “Nobody wants to consume our products just because we tell them, ‘these
are so efficiently produced and we can’t believe the yields we got.’ They don’t
care about that. What they want to know is that we took care of our animals,
our earth and our communities along the way and we can prove it. It takes us
all working together to do that.
“One of our Innovation Center guiding principles is that
we are better together. We will go faster by teaching and learning and
challenging each other. As an Alliance, we should share freely our best
practices so dairy can be seen as a sustainability solution.”
The Alliance meeting provided insights into the USDA
Partnership for Climate Smart Commodities grants totaling up to $2.8 billion
for 70 projects announced in September. The projects that include dairy will
provide technical and financial assistance for farmers, support the development
of expanded markets and revenue streams, and help the industry make progress
toward its collective 2050 Environmental Stewardship Goals at the field and
farm levels.
The meeting’s opening panel featured lead partners who
previewed their projects and the goals they hope to achieve. The California
Dairy Research Foundation, in partnership with 20 other organizations,
including Dairy Cares, was among the projects selected. Michael Boccadoro,
executive director of Dairy Cares, said the project was selected to receive an
approximate funding ceiling of $85 million that will be enhanced with an
additional $40 million from the state of California. The project will support
efforts to build climate-smart dairy markets and provide financial incentives
for the state’s farmers to adopt manure management practices that reduce
methane emissions and manage nitrogen.
“It’s a tremendous project that is going to build on and
leverage the real unique efforts California has initiated in dairy methane
reduction,” Boccadoro said. “We’ve been working on this since 2016 and we have
made tremendous progress reducing over 2 million metric tons of methane in the
dairy sector.”
Another project led by Wisconsin-based Edge Dairy Farmer
Cooperative was selected to receive an approximate funding ceiling of $50
million to expand climate-smart markets and establish dairy and sugar as
climate-smart commodities through the implementation of new production
practices. Tim Trotter, CEO of Edge Dairy Farmer
Cooperative, said the co-op’s commitment to sustainable practices starts
with farmer input.
“We are blessed to have a visionary membership who about
six years ago decided sustainability is a topic we want to address,” Trotter
said. “What we looked at was how can we build this from the ground up? We want
the farmers to be centric in the conversation and be engaged with the
conversation and make the best decisions for them, so we need to check all
boxes.”
Lisa Watson, social responsibility officer of the
Innovation Center, offered an update on the U.S. Dairy Stewardship Commitment,
launched in 2018 to support farmers, cooperatives and processors who
voluntarily work across the industry to advance sustainability leadership and
transparently report progress. Commitment terms of adoption are reviewed every
3 to 5 years for consistency with the latest science, insights and priorities.
Commitment adopters represent more than 75 percent of U.S. milk production.
Watson thanked the companies that are part of the
Commitment for “raising all boats for U.S. dairy.”
“The Commitment helps us earn the trust of stakeholders,
achieve aggregate reporting and demonstrate that U.S. dairy is a true global
sustainability leader,” Watson said. “The metrics within the Commitment are
aligned with global standards and protocols that help us gain credibility for
our work. Through the Commitment, we can say with confidence that U.S. dairy
farmers and processors are making a real difference and moving the needle
toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.”
The meeting featured other sessions focused on:
- Scientific evidence that
shows feed additives carry potential in reducing enteric methane emissions
from dairy cattle.
- The checkoff’s work in
helping to create a program that integrates agriculture literacy into
national high school science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)
standards.
- Dairy’s role in helping
to nourish 34 million Americans facing food insecurity, including 9
million children, with insights from Feeding America leaders.
- How stakeholders across
the dairy value chain are taking decisive action to improve water
management in the face of economic and environmental uncertainties.
Dairy Farmers Participate in
Sustainable Agriculture Summit
The Sustainable Agriculture
Summit followed the Alliance meeting and is billed as “the premier
sustainability event for agriculture and by agriculture.” The
meeting featured more than 700 farmers, suppliers, processors, brands,
academia, conservation organizations and the public sector and is produced in
partnership by the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy and Field to Market.
The dairy industry was
represented on several parts of the Summit’s agenda, including a panel discussion
moderated by New Mexico producer Tara Vander Dussen, who also is an
environmental scientist and co-founder of Elevate Ag. The discussion centered
on how western farmers, including Jim Boyle, Jr. of Casa Grande Dairy in
Arizona, are advancing sustainability, while highlighting challenges they face
and the need for industry-wide collaboration that can build economically viable
pathways.
For information about the
industry’s sustainability work and the dairy checkoff, visit www.usdairy.com.