The Truth About Cows and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
At our dairy farm, I’ve been working to reduce methane emissions nearly my entire life. I can tell you it’s not a black and white issue (or a brown and white one, depending on your breed of cow). Here’s how sustainable farming works at our fifth-generation, 600-acre dairy farm in Deerfield, Massachusetts.
Cows make a lot of milk and a lot of manure; both are important to us. We make about 2,500 gallons of milk a day to feed our local communities. It travels on average 48 hours from farm to store. Each of our cows also creates about 80 pounds of manure a day. We reduce greenhouse gas emissions by turning methane from manure into renewable natural gas (RNG).