Dairy farmers are working to get that number down even further. Over the past 60 years they have decreased their carbon footprint by more than 60 percent. They have done this by having cows eat from a special feed rather than graze in the fields.
«We use a tremendous amount of byproduct feeds into cattle rations,» said Dr. Fred Muller who a veterinarian in Grandview. «Those are things if we didn’t utilize them they could end up in landfills.»
That feed allows the cows to longer graze in the fields which produces more methane because of the energy used by the cows to walk back and forth. The feed also makes cows more efficient when producing milk. More efficient cows means fewer cows which means less methane. Muller says this feed has made a huge difference in milk production
«We are producing nearly twice the milk on half the number of cows or less than half of the cows that we had in the 1950s.» said Muller.
