I was reading an article on Grist.org about new efforts in the dairy industry to incorporate more sustainable practices, and a recent Dairy Sustainability summit. The article wasn’t terribly detailed, but did make a statement that
“Numerous studies have demonstrated that organic dairy production produces between one-half to one-third fewer greenhouse-gas emissions and uses about 30 percent less energy than conventional dairy production.”
At the end of the article, a blog discussion requested the writer’s source documents, which she provided below. I poked around to find some online links to them, if you’d like to learn more.
Weiske, A., Vabitsch, A., Olesen, J.E., Schelde, K., Michel, J., Friedrich, R., Kaltschmitt, M., 2005. Mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions in European conventional and organic dairy farming. Agric. Ecosyst. Environ.
Finally, there was also a link to the key targets of the recent summit, from the National Milk Producers Federation web site.
Jenn