Biden Administration to Focus on Climate, Dairy Already Leading the Way
President Elect Joe Biden has made it abundantly clear that his top priority beyond ending the grip of the coronavirus is impacting climate change through the resources of every single federal agency. To underscore that commitment, he has appointed political heavyweights former Secretary of State John Kerry and former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to lead the government’s climate plan on the international and domestic stages respectively. Also included on that climate team is EPA designee Michael Regan who currently heads the Department of Environmental Quality in North Carolina.
Even Tom Vilsack, tapped to return as USDA secretary, is in on the climate plan. In fact, in his nomination speech, he indicated that the opportunity to act on climate is one of the issues that drew him from his nearly million dollar annual income at the U.S. Dairy Export Council back to the $210,700 salary at USDA.
“When we emerge from this crisis, we're going to have an incredible opportunity before us to position American agriculture to lead our nation and the world in combating climate change and reaping the new good paying jobs and farm income that will come from that leadership,” he said.
Dairy producers are already ahead of that curve and have set sustainability goals that track with the Biden Administration objectives, according to Dr. Jamie Jonker, Vice President, Sustainability and Scientific Affairs at the National Milk Producers Federation.
“Earlier this year, the US dairy industry set very aggressive, new environmental sustainability goals to achieve carbon neutrality or better optimize water usage and improve water quality by 2050, so the US dairy industry has been on this roadmap to sustainability and it's nothing new for us,” Jonker says
That move toward sustainability has been driven by the marketplace, not government, so far.
“We have large national and multinational companies that are announcing their own strategic goals to address climate change, and in absence of any action, either regulatory or financial incentives from the government, for the dairy industry and agriculture to make changes to address climate issues, the marketplace is already making those demands,” Jonker says.
About 78% of the U.S. milk supply already participates in an industry program to assess and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, according to Jonker. There is room to do more in partnership with USDA.
“Certainly methane digesters are an important part of that. Ways that we can better utilize our manure nutrients on both on our dairy farms and to be able to export some of those nutrients onto cropland where the grains are grown, because dairy farms do import about 50 to 60% of their feed from off farm, and so we do need to have economically viable ways to redistribute those nutrients back where some of those crops are grown,” Jonker says. “There needs to be opportunities for things like some of these emerging feed additives that are coming out that are showing promise to reduce enteric methane emission from ruminant animals by up to 30%.”
To be successful, Jonker notes, the climate push must financially reward producers who aggressively push that carbon neutrality by 2050 goal.
