New project will adapt dairying to climate change

Bob Mitchell at the University of Wisconsin-Madison News: Agricultural scientists from across the nation are embarking on a new five-year, $10 million, USDA-funded effort to identify dairy production practices that minimize the emission of greenhouse gasses (GHG) and will be more resilient to the effects of a changing climate.

The project is led by UW-Madison and involves researchers and extension staff from seven universities, five federal labs of the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Energy, and the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced the project in Madison on May 7 during a visit to the USDA's Dairy Forage Research Center on the UW campus.

The goal is to find ways to reduce GHG emissions generated in all phases of dairy production while continuing to grow profitability and productivity, says project director Matt Ruark, UW-Madison assistant professor and extension soils specialist.

"We will be working across the entire dairy production system to improve production efficiency while decreasing negative impacts in an effort to support U.S. dairy producers' ongoing sustainability efforts," Ruark says.

"This is about adaptation — how to move agriculture forward to be as productive as possible as we move into a changing climate," Ruark says. "Anything we can do to reduce losses of carbon, nitrogen and water from the system can lead to greater efficiency. This will lead to more profit for the producer, less impact on the environment and a sustainable milk supply for the consumer."...

Cow photo by Brian Thomas, public domain

Drought to drive up cost of dairy

Elizabeth Wiese in USA Today: The heat and drought ravaging much of the nation will soon hit America at the supermarket counter: Cheese and milk prices will rise first and corn and meat are probably not far behind.

Price hikes in basic food staples are causing huge concern to milk producers and others who rely on dairy to sustain an important part of the national farming economy. The rises foreshadow price hikes in coming months for other food staples, such as meat, says Bruce Jones, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

There will still be milk to buy, says Roger Hoskin, an agricultural economist with the Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service. "I can't imagine situations where you'd have people standing in line to get milk at the dairy counter. But they might not want it at the price it's selling at."

...Temperatures in the 90s and above mean cows give less milk, and sky-high feed prices are making it more expensive to feed them. Add to that the cost dairies must pay for fans and sprinkler systems to keep the animals cool during long hot days and nights.

This year, every state east of the Rockies is enduring its hottest or second-hottest year on record, according to the National Climatic Data Center. Overall, 28 states are seeing their hottest year since accurate records began in 1895....

A stockyard in Oakley, Kansas, in 2006, shot by Nyttend, public domain