A team at Penn State received a $25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to study reduction in dairy farm methane emissions by using what the agency calls “climate-smart” practices.
The research will include 70 farms across Pennsylvania that will be selected with help from the Center for Dairy Excellence, a nonprofit created by the state agriculture department. Those will include farms of various sizes and owned by underrepresented groups to help identify methods that work best for them.
The goal is to provide measurable reductions in methane emissions from cows. Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
The reductions can be used as carbon credits in the products the farms produce. The credits could be used by companies or retailers purchasing the products as a means to meet their climate goals.
According to Dr. Katherine Zipp, an associate professor of environmental and resource economics at Penn State, there is market potential for this. “Consumers have shown that they’re willing to pay for carbon offsets,” she said.
Jayne Sebright, the executive director at the Center, notes dairy farmers are interested in using methods that could cut emissions. “It’ll impact these farms significantly in helping them meet that challenge of becoming climate-smart farms, like, really mitigating their carbon footprint,” she said.
The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Eri Yoshida up on time and under budget at The Other McCain.
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