Dairy’s carbon footprint shrinking

The carbon footprint of a gallon of milk has dropped from 31 pounds per gallon in 1944 to 12 pounds per gallon in 2007, says Mike Hutjens, extension dairy specialist at the University of Illinois. That’s more than a 250 percent decrease.       

The reduced carbon footprint is the result of improved efficiency in milk production. "Using 1944 as the base year of comparison — and also the year of the largest number of dairy cows in the United States — the number of dairy cows has dropped from 25.6 million to 9.2 million cows, while milk production has increased from 117 billion pounds to 186 billion pounds," says Hutjens.For more information, click here.

Source: University of Illinois

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