Our Sustainable Path: On-farm Sustainability

OV dairy footprint calculator

At the milestone of our 20th anniversary, we embarked on a study to chart the way our organic dairy farms have avoided impacts to the environment. The study additionally tracks the on-farm income of Organic Valley farmers compared to the income of conventional farmers. Although the study is under review by our agricultural sustainability team, preliminary results are exciting:

• Since 1988, we have prevented nearly 59 million pounds of synthetic nitrogen and approximately 950,000 pounds of herbicides and pesticides from being applied to our soils.
• Over the last 20 years, CROPP farmers received, on average, 38% higher milk premiums compared to the conventional average pay price.

Methane

In recent years the dairy industry has come under scrutiny regarding the effects of methane on climate change, because methane is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. It deserves our attention. We are partnering with local extension and university personnel to determine the viability of smallscale manure digesters, and anticipate feasibility studies on some of our farms this coming year. Additionally, we are working with Stonyfield Farm on a project to reduce methane from cows.

On-farm energy

In 2008, we began to build the Farmer Renewable Energy Program (FREP). Our mission is to promote on-farm renewable energy projects and energy efficiency measures, and to encourage sustainable agriculture viability through research, development, and education.

It was a great first year of cooperation, resulting in three Organic Valley farmer-owners receiving a combined total of $120,171 in federal and state grants for renewable wind-energy projects.   Many of our farmers completed energy efficiency and renewable energy audits as well, which will help guide projects in the future.

In the past few years we began to look deeper into what really qualifies as “sustainable fuel.” We wanted to identify candidate non-food, non-GMO, organic oil seed crops to use as biofuel. So we got busy and established a system to grow, harvest, press, convert and run a variety of contenders without ever leaving the farm.

We have so far invested two seasons growing and researching camelina (a small false flax) and sunflowers. Both of these crops have shown strong promise in our test fields. For example, farmers are seeing not only a high yield of oil (80–110 gallons per acre) but also 1200–1500 pounds of feed meal per acre as well. Feed and fuel produced in one process from the same field! Even in our early stages, this revolutionary approach is already boosting farmers by cutting both their fuel and feed costs.

We completed our mobile biodiesel system in 2008 and successfully created biodiesel from our crops of sunflowers and camelina to power some of our vehicles and equipment. This system is now used for demonstrations on farms and at events. 

Steps to Sustainability

introduction
on the farm
humane animal treatment
operations
water stewardship
employees
partnerships
giving
sustainable trade

Excerpted from the Organic Valley/ CROPP Cooperative 2008 Annual Report.