As the world’s food sectors took center stage at COP28 in Dubai, the dairy industry’s contribution to the greenhouse gas reduction process is receiving the attention it deserves.
We also know, as dairy farmers, that our product is utilized to make a diverse range of nutritionally rich foods, drinks, and components that feed customers in the United States and across the globe. We also paid close attention in September to the United Nations General Assembly, which emphasized the tremendous rise in global hunger and malnutrition, which has been compounded by conflict, the effects of climate change, and supply chain disruptions.
Make no mistake: trade has never been more crucial than today in ensuring that people in need obtain good nourishment as cheaply and quickly as possible. In summary, criticism that food commerce contributes to climate change is exaggerated. Data show that food transportation is a minor source to global emissions, and concentrating on “food miles” obscures a plethora of variables that might effect a product’s carbon footprint, such as land usage, production techniques, and storage. New trade obstacles erected to achieve indiscriminate reductions would harm global nutrition.
According to a 2022 research published in the journal Nature, trade restrictions would exacerbate the effects of climate change on hunger, increasing the incidence of undernourished individuals by up to 47%. In contrast, the same research found that lowering trade barriers would somewhat mitigate the effect of climate change on hunger, reducing climate-related malnourishment by up to 64%.
And dairy isn’t just any foodstuff; few meals provide the nutritional punch that dairy does. In the United States, milk, cheese, and yogurt are excellent sources of protein, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, and vitamins A, B12, D, and riboflavin.
Importantly, the North American dairy industry, in which the United States is the principal milk producer, lowered greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions intensity (emissions per gallon of milk produced) by 2.2% per year from 2005 to 2015, despite a 2.1% rise in milk output. A significant national program with the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) that has received $30 million in financing from food industry partners and the foundation intends to speed our sector’s emission-reduction efforts toward GHG neutrality by 2050.
And we haven’t stopped trying to become better since. We have taken numerous meaningful measures toward our industry-wide objective of GHG neutrality by 2050 by collaborating with partners around the nation. This includes, but is not limited to, investing in research and pilot projects to discover new scalable techniques and technologies that may boost trash recycling, water reuse, and energy savings.
We recognize that, like any business, we must act quicker and on a greater scale to reduce emissions. We are not perfect, but we are putting in more effort and resources to meet our carbon reduction targets while still meeting the world’s crucial demands for food and high-quality nutrition.
Because those objectives are industry-wide, farms of diverse sizes and climates throughout the United States are now exploring new tools, methods, and technology to see what works best for their operations.
Achieving our lofty aims will undoubtedly need the acquisition of several new instruments. For example, we are undertaking research on soil management strategies that may help boost productivity, decrease on-farm GHG emissions, increase soil’s ability to store carbon from the atmosphere, and improve water quality by lowering runoff.
Most importantly, the instruments we need to fulfill our sustainability objectives must be economically feasible. Family farms are also small companies. We are making sound judgments, but we must also consider the economic feasibility of our choices for today and future generations.
Fortunately, we think it is possible. Already now, new income streams connected with more sustainable agricultural techniques enable farmers to implement cost-neutral or lucrative innovation practices and technology.
That puts us back to business. We don’t only exchange things when we trade. We exchange ideas. Our trade partnerships provide a pathway for information sharing regarding U.S. dairy sustainability and nutritional density–all of the technologies, tools, and practices we are building, as well as all of the dairy nutrition research.
We were in Dubai this year for COP 28 to highlight both of these realities and to explain the continued efforts of the US dairy sector to significantly decrease greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while playing an increasingly important role in fulfilling global nutrition demands and maintaining food security. Trade is a major component of this.
Throughout the conference, we emphasized the importance of free commerce in ensuring the speedy and efficient transmission of knowledge and ensuring enough nutrient-dense food is accessible for those in need.
The world has no time to waste in using all we’ve learned collectively to address the climate and food crises. We must exercise caution in responding to these two interconnected summons to action so that none is harmed at the cost of the other.
