It is now clear that this is going to be one of the biggest challenges facing the sector in the years to come.
The science and terminology is confusing (greenhouse gas or GHG emissions, carbon footprinting, carbon equivalents, carbon trading, mitigation potential) but these will all feature in future farming discussions.
UK Government has for example already set a target of 60% GHG emission reduction by 2050 under the climate change bill and with agriculture thought to contribute up to 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it is a sector that will quickly have to become very familiar with this policy agenda.
The impact of climate change on the dairy sector is being seen in many different areas of the world: in the middle east and Australia rising temperatures and reduced rainfall are challenging future sustainability; in Northern Europe and East Africa animal diseases such as bluetongue and rift valley fever are becoming more prevalent as temperatures rise and they move outside their traditional areas of circulation, and; with sea levels gradually rising salination is threatening the fertility of land and the supply of fresh water in some population and livestock dense areas such as the Nile delta in Egypt.
The dairy sector has been scrutinised by negotiators working on mitigation policies. Dairy farming is seen as a major contributor of emissions in the agriculture GHG budget and with an estimated 350 million dairy cows world-wide, they have focused on the output of Methane and Nitrous Oxide from this sector.
Policy makers have yet to legislate on specific mitigation measures in dairy farming but there is an onus for us to get more pro-actively involved now rather than wait for inflexible legislation to be applied later.
Several mitigation work streams need to be examined in much more detail for their commercial viability such as manure fermentation (anaerobic digestion / co-digestion); improving productivity per cow (intensification); reducing methane production from the rumen (through nutrition, inhibitors or genomics); management of crops / grassland and soil organic matter. Another important consideration is the development of a standard model that can be readily used to analyse carbon footprints and establish a baseline for each sector.
The dairy industry needs to start thinking now about how it can be pro-active in helping to tackle climate change. Research has an important role to play in generating evidence based policies and it is essential that national governments play their part in supporting the required programmes that are needed to answer the many unknowns about climate change, its impacts and mitigation strategies.