USDA's Deal with Dairy Industry to Cut Emissions

USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack / Mark Andrew BoyerAt the climate talks in Copenhagen, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack announced a new deal with American dairy farmers to cut greenhouse gas emissions by capturing methane gas.

No, the plan doesn't involve capturing bovine burps and farts, which account for 200 to 400 pounds of methane a year. Instead, Vilsack is encouraging dairy farmers to collect cow manure and run it through a piece of machinery called an anaerobic digester, which converts manure into energy.

It sounds neat, but is this really the answer? According to the AP report, "only 2 percent of U.S. dairy farmers are using the technology, mostly because it is too costly for family farmers."

Here's why:

"There are more than 60,000 dairy farms with about 9 million dairy cows in the United States, but 77 percent of the farms have fewer than 100 cows, according to Dairy Farming Today, an industry group. Farms that would be interested in this technology would likely have more than 100 cows."

Vilsack says the deal will enable the US dairy industry to cut emissions by 25 percent within ten years.

-Mark

Comments

[Kirsten]

This isn't the answer to everything, but it's certainly better than nothing. If 77% of 60,000 are small dairy farms, that means 46,200 are small farms. If they each had 100 cows, which we know isn't the case as many have less, these small farms would account for no more than 4,620,000 cows, or about half the number in the country. That means that the other half of the cows in this country could have their manure processed in this way if their owners bought the machinery. That's still pretty significant. In addition, perhaps several small dairies that are near each other could band together to purchase these machines. I'd like to see the USDA come up with a way to help those smaller farmers get involved as well.

[OrganicNation.tv]

I agree. This year has been particularly tough for dairy farmers, so I think if this is going to work, USDA is going to have to commit some money to help farmers purchase these anaerobic digesters. Vilsack committed $90 million to greenhouse gas research in Copenhagen, but I didn't see anything about designating funds for this project.

In theory, dairy farmers could stand to either save or make a significant amount of money by converting manure into fuel, but it still sounds like a difficult proposition for many.

[cory]

I am a dairy farmer in northeast wisconsin and very curious about the subject. On our dairy, we capture and use all of the manure on our fields for fertilizer. My concern is whether the pay off would be there if we turned all the manure into energy, because then we would have to buy all the fertilizers for the fields. Just wondering.