The Organic Center (this link no longer available)

Reproductive health problems on high-production, grain-based dairies lead to fewer and longer lactations, increasing costs and cutting lifelong production and revenue

BOULDER, Colo. (November 10, 2010) – Organic dairy farming systems promote cow health and longevity by placing less stress on cows and feeding them healthier forage-based diets, while also improving the nutritional quality of milk, according to a new report released today by The Organic Center (TOC). “A Dairy Farm’s Footprint: Evaluating the Impacts of Conventional and Organic Farming Systems” compares milk and meat production and revenue earned, feed intakes, the land and agricultural chemicals needed to produce feed, and the volume of wastes generated by representative, well-managed conventional dairy farms and also representative, well-managed organic farms. Key findings and conclusions include:

* The average cow on organic dairy farms provides milk through twice as many, markedly shorter lactations and lives 1.5 to 2 years longer than cows on high-production conventional dairies;
* Because cows live and produce milk longer on organic farms, milking cow replacement rates are 30% to 46% lower, reducing the feed required and wastes generated by heifers raised as replacement animals;
* Cows on organic farms require 1.8 to 2.3 breeding attempts per calf carried to term, compared to 3.5 attempts on conventional farms;
* The enhanced nutritional quality of milk from cows on forage based diets, and in particular Jersey cows, significantly reduces the volume of wastes generated on organic dairy farms; and
* The manure management systems common on most organic farms reduce manure methane emissions by 60% to 80%, and manure plus enteric methane emissions by 25% to 45%.

Reducing methane emissions is a critical goal for all dairy farmers because this greenhouse gas is 25-times more potent than CO2 in global warming potential. The report also notes that gross milk and meat sales revenues are about 50% higher per year of a cow’s life on organic dairy farms, largely because of significantly greater milk revenue. Over the last five years, organic dairy farmers have received, on average, a premium of $10.98 per hundredweight of milk (average of $26.82 per hundredweight of organic milk compared to conventional average price of $15.93).

A team of dairy specialists worked with TOC to build the “Shades of Green” (SOG) dairy farm calculator used to make the projections summarized above. TOC is also releasing today, free of charge, the SOG calculator, the full model results comparing the four representative farms, and a 92-page report providing detailed documentation and user instructions for the SOG calculator. “This is the first comprehensive analysis of the environmental footprint of alternative dairy farm management systems based on a fully described and freely disclosed, operational model,” said Dr. Charles Benbrook, The Organic Center’s Chief Scientist.

Klaas Martens, a farmer in New York and one of the 14 report co-authors, predicted that, “This report and the SOG calculator will help all dairy farmers better understand how to improve both cow health and their bottom line, while also doing a better job reducing the environmental impact of dairy farming.”

The principal funding for the development of the SOG calculator and this report was provided by a grant from the Packard Foundation. This Critical Issue Report, the SOG calculator, and the user manual are available at www.organic-center.org/SOG_Home.

About The Organic Center
The Organic Center is an independent nonprofit 501(c)(3) research and education organization whose mission is to advance scientific research on the health and environmental benefits of organic food and farming, and to communicate those benefits to the public. All of The Organic Center’s research reports, publications, consumer guides and videos are available free of charge on our website, www.organic-center.org.

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