Methane Mitigation Strategies for Dairy Herds
Channel: Livestock & Poultry Environ. Learning Community
Date: 2017-05-04

The U.S. dairy industry has committed to lowering the carbon footprint of milk production by 25% by 2020. A key factor in meeting this goal is reducing enteric greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions which represent about 51% of the carbon footprint of a gallon of milk. Methane (CH4) is the primary GHG emitted by dairy cows. Total methane emissions represented 10.6% of the total U.S. GHG emissions in 2014. Enteric CH4 emissions were 22.5% of the total methane emissions. Methane emissions from dairy cattle were 5.7% of total U.S. methane emissions or 0.6% of all U.S. GHG emissions. The purpose of this project was to examine nutrition and management options to lower methane emissions from dairy cattle.

Proceedings available at: http://articles.extension.org/74247