How dairy farms can contribute to the fight against climate change and biodiversity loss

How a dairy farm is managed has a big influence on the farm’s impact on the environment and climate.

Arla farmers have been reducing their CO2e emissions for decades by precisely managing their cows, fields, feed and energy usage. While they are on the way to a 30% reduction by 2030 supported by Arla’s FarmAhead™ Check, there are additional activities they can do to further improve their farm’s impact on nature.

Increasing biodiversity. Improving soil health. Protecting grasslands from overgrazing. Increasing carbon capture in soil. All of these activities are part of what is called a regenerative agriculture system, which is gaining attention as one of the responses to the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss.

To gain a better understanding of how regenerative farming methods can be applied to dairy farming, Arla’s organic farmers are further intensifying their focus on biodiversity with annual self-assessments and on soil health through third party soil carbon analyses.

In line with official standards for organic milk production, our organic farmers are already focusing on nutrient cycling and proactive pest control to avoid the use of industrial fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Their cows graze outside during the grazing season, and they have permanent grassland, cover crops and use crop rotations which are all examples of management practices associated with regenerative agriculture.

Biodiversity maintains the ecosystems on the farm. Among other things, biodiversity improves soil fertility, nutrient recycling as well as crop and tree pollination. It is broadly recognised that biodiversity mitigates and provides resilience against climate change.

As custodians of farmlands, dairy farmers can have a tangible impact on biodiversity. These are some of the actions farmers can take to gradually improve biodiversity:

• Let sections of the land grow naturally
• Allow flower-rich pollinator habitats to grow
• Plant hedgerows and let them flower
• Allow natural woodlands and wetlands
• Reduce or avoid the use of pesticides

When farmers succeed in improving biodiversity and soil health on their farms one of the benefits is that the plants and soil will capture more carbon. This is called carbon sequestration and can potentially be recognised as a positive handprint that ultimately reduces the farmers’ carbon footprint per kilo of milk.

Dairy farmers often have a lot of grasslands for growing animal feed and grazing that – if managed well – can increase carbon sequestration to capture CO2 in stable, solid forms in the soil. This is called carbon sequestration and can potentially be recognised as a positive handprint that ultimately reduces the farmers’ carbon footprint per kilo of milk.

However, it is one of the effects of dairy farming that is not fully scientifically understood and there is currently no consensus on how to account for this. In an attempt to change that, Arla is part of a collaboration called C-sequ, which is led by experts from Quantis and includes Danone, DMI, FrieslandCampina, Fonterra, Mars, McDonalds and Nestle among others to develop internationally recognised and globally adopted carbon sequestration calculation guidelines for the dairy sector.

As part of Arla’s organic farmers’ focus on soil health, they test their soil’s carbon level every five years. This is partly to understand how much carbon is stored in the ground, which is an indicator of soil health, but also to uncover the potential for farmers to review their soil and biodiversity management practices to increase carbon sequestration.