Sustainability has become an important word throughout agriculture, yet it is often overused and misinterpreted. Sustainability has three pillars: environmental, economic, and social. For a project or business to achieve optimal sustainability it must mix these 3 components. Research is being conducted in each of these areas to aid dairy producers in making sustainable decisions for their operations. To further this research, this thesis primarily focused on economic and environmental sustainability through two different projects. The first project, which primarily focused on economic sustainability, investigated whether Jersey or Holstein dairy cattle are more profitable when housed on the same farm in a North Central U.S. climate. The study included 3 case study farms that milked both Jersey and Holstein dairy cattle and found that Holstein cows were on average $456 more profitable annually across the 3 farms. Sensitivity analysis was performed to determine what changes to Jersey performance would be needed to surpass Holstein profitability. Based on the sensitivity analysis, it is highly unlikely that Jerseys can surpass Holstein profitability, except by increasing component production or entering a market area that separates and pays premiums for Jersey milk. The second project focused on providing a fuller understanding of greenhouse gas (GHG) footprints on dairy farms. GHG footprints can be impacted by management practices. We evaluated whether small dairies could approach net zero emissions, by assessing the GHG footprints of four exemplary small and mid-sized dairy farms throughout the United States with Farm ES and Comet models. Longitudinal soil samples were also analyzed to determine carbon sequestration rates. Evaluating these 4 farms allowed comparison across regions, management practices, and prediction models and revealed that exemplary small dairy farms can approach carbon neutrality today when accounting for soil carbon sequestration. Enteric methane accounted for 42% of the carbon footprints on small to mid-size U.S. dairies. Manure separation technology reduced the estimated manure emissions from a dairy by nearly 50% and farm emissions intensity by 19%. Accounting for carbon sequestration reduced farm GHG emissions intensities by 18% on average. Although vastly different, both studies provided valuable insight into questions the dairy industry has asked for years. As an industry, being able to quantify what is currently happening on dairies opens opportunities to improve decision-making in the future and create solutions that are economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable.
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