DAIRY NEWS – Dairy producers interested in understanding the environmental footprint of their farms and positioning themselves to make improvements have an exciting first-come-first-served opportunity. Professional Dairy Producers® (PDP) has just announced there are additional grant opportunities available for more dairy producers through its Your Farm-Your Footprint® sustainability initiative.
Beginning November 1, 2024, a select group of dairy producers can receive grants of $9,750 per farm, covering up to 2,500 acres. The grants are available to the first 100 dairy farms who register for the program as of Nov. 1.
More details on how increased access to grants directly impacts dairy producers will be highlighted at the upcoming Carbon, Crops + Cows™ workshops, scheduled in three repeating sessions on Nov. 12, 13, and 14. Presented by PDP, this one-day farmer-focused program will feature experts outlining updates in the carbon market and sustainability reporting as well as a panel discussion between farmers sharing their experiences measuring their own carbon emissions and environmental footprint.
Each one-day program will run from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at three locations:
- Tuesday, Nov. 12 at Miltrim Farm in Athens, Wis.
- Wednesday, Nov. 13 at GreenStone Farm Credit Services in Little Chute, Wis.
- Thursday, Nov. 14 at Arlington Ag Research Station in Arlington, Wis.
Presenters will include Carson Dugger, lead agronomist at Eocene Environmental Group, and Courtney Titus, technical services manager at Eocene Environmental Group, to provide insights on the measurement tools, reporting and carbon market opportunities. Dairy producers John Haag, owner and operator of Haag Dairy LLC, in Dane, Wis., and Paul Lippert, co-owner of Grass Ridge Farm, in Pittsville, Wis., will share their insights and lessons learned from carbon tracking and data analysis on their own farms.
PDP’s Your Farm – Your Footprint is the only farmer-led sustainability initiative, working directly and confidentially with producers to calculate their carbon and greenhouse gas metrics, and determine how to use that information to position their dairy for the future. The initiative was launched in February 2024 after a pilot program with dairy producers. All Your Farm – Your Footprint grants to dairy producers are funded through Dairy’s Foundation.
“Our goal is to help farmers position their operations for the future, while looking out for their best interests,” said Shelly Mayer, dairy producer and executive director of PDP. “PDP believes Your Farm – Your Footprint can accelerate dairy’s sustainability movement by enabling dairy farmers to confidentially and confidently know their individual farm score, which will put them in a better position to make informed decisions and explore other sustainability programs.”
The Your Farm – Your Footprint is a good fit for producers who have been skeptical of other environmental, carbon or sustainability initiatives because of uncertainty and vagueness of data access, ownership and how data might be used in the future, said Mayer.
To register for the Carbon, Cows + Crops workshop, visit www.pdpw.org. To learn more about Your Farm – Your Footprint, visit www.pdpw.org/your-farm-your-footprint or contact PDP at 800-947-7379. Follow along digitally in advance of and during the event by following PDP on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X.
Professional Dairy Producers (PDP) is the nation’s largest dairy producer-led organization of its kind, focusing on producer professionalism, stakeholder engagement and unified outreach to share ideas, solutions, resources and experiences that help dairy producers succeed.
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