New research network aims to reduce dairy farming carbon footprint

Dairy cows pictured on Aberystwyth University’s research farm at Trawsgoed.

Innovative strategies to significantly reduce high levels of greenhouse gas emissions in the dairy industry are being trialled in a major new research project.

The pioneering initiative will test and assess the effectiveness of a range of science-based solutions aimed at making dairy farming more economically and environmentally sustainable.

A network of 56 dairy farms is being set up across four major dairying regions in the UK, including West Wales and South/South-West England; Northern Ireland; Cumbria and South-West Scotland, and North-West England.

The network will provide a series of demonstration hubs where farmers, industry, scientists and policymakers can work together to deploy and evaluate the impact of the new measures.

Aberystwyth University is one of ten leading research institutions contributing to the UK Dairy Carbon Network project, which is led by the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI).

The project will be developing a toolkit of practical measures which dairy farmers can choose to adopt in a bid to reduce their herd’s carbon footprint.

Options could include:

• improving forage quality through science developed by plant breeding programmes at Aberystwyth University’s Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS)
• following the latest research on best practice for silage making
• reducing the protein content of dairy cow feeds to improve nitrogen use efficiency.

Professor Jon Moorby, Chair in Livestock Science at Aberystwyth University, said: “Dairy cows contribute significantly to Wales’s rural economy and produce high quality food for people from grass and other forages.  However, cows, like other ruminant animals, produce greenhouse gases like methane as a by-product of converting grass into milk.  

“Many dairy farmers are already taking steps to help minimise greenhouse gas production from their cows and this project aims to demonstrate further what can be achieved across all types of dairy farms to help improve their sustainability. This is a collaborative initiative and we want to work closely with farmers as well as the wider industry and policymakers.”

Professor Steven Morrison, Head of Sustainable Livestock Systems at AFBI, said: “Our goal with the project is to drive meaningful change in the dairy sector by applying research directly to real-world farming conditions and measuring the impact.

“By working closely with farmers and using advanced measurement and modelling techniques, we aim to measure and report significant reductions in the carbon emissions from dairy farming in the UK. During the formation of the project, the interest from across the agricultural sector was immense, with over 50 organisations offering support and indicating a willingness to get involved in the project once commissioned.”

The UK Dairy Carbon Network Project is funded by the UK Government’s Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Led by AFBI, the UK wide consortium of organisations also includes the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB); AgriSearch; UK Agritech Centre; ADAS; Aberystwyth University; Queen’s University Belfast; Harper Adams University; University of Reading; Newcastle University and Scotland’s Rural College.

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