Profitable Climate Actions on Dairy Farms

In Sweden, two different tools, Vera Klimatkollen and Agrosfär, are used to perform climate calculations within Climate Farm Demo. Greppa Näringen, the developer of Vera Klimatkollen, has modeled several scenarios for a dairy farm to determine whether measures that benefit the climate are also economically advantageous for the farm.

The dairy farm used in the modeling has conventional farming with the following production and key figures (Option 1):
• 200 cows
• 240 ha arable land (of which 170 ha is grassland and field pasture)
• 50 ha natural pasture
• Grassland, cereals, and whole-crop silage (oats/peas)
• Bull calves and part of the grain and straw sold

Key Figures and Feed Ration (kg DM/day)
• Milk production: 10,000 kg ECM
• Ley & whole-crop silage: 10.5
• Beet pulp (molasses dried): 3.6
• Grain: 1.7
• Concentrate & protein mix: 4.3
• ExPro (rapeseed protein): 1.6
• Young heifers: 130 kg
• Old heifers: 65 kg
• Bull calf sale age: 2 weeks
• Calving age: 27 months
• Recruitment rate: 35%
• Calf mortality: 5%
• Calving interval: 13.2 months
• Milk delivered: 92%
• Forage wastage: 15%

Alternative Scenarios (see Table 1)

– Option 2: Replaces soya and palm products with more self-produced feed, which has a lower carbon footprint. The overall quantity of purchased feed is reduced as cows receive more silage and cereals.
More ley is grown, while less oats and spring wheat are cultivated. The feed ration is formulated to maintain the same milk yield as the baseline. The economic outcome remains almost unchanged, meaning that production and profitability are maintained, but with a significantly lower climate impact.

– Option 3: Focuses on improved growth, health, and management, leading to lower recruitment rates, reduced calving ages, and lower calf mortality. To distinguish between the climate footprint of replacement heifers and slaughter animals, the farm sells all heifer calves that are not recruited. This results in 75 younger heifers and 45older heifers, reducing the recruitment rate to 30%, calving age to 24months, and calf mortality to 2%. Fewer animals go to carcass and slaughter since future slaughter heifers are sold at a younger age.
While income from slaughtering animals decreases, savings are made on feed, buildings, and labor. If the farm has limited space for young animals, selling more animals earlier can be beneficial. More straw and silage are also sold.

– Option 4: Increases milk yield to 12,000 kg ECM per cow per year through better management. Cows consume more silage, but the feed ration and key figures remain unchanged. The farm grows 112tonnes (t) more forage, while producing 30 t less winter wheat and 30t less spring wheat compared to the baseline. Since more forage is grown and more cereals are retained, total income decreases, but increased milk income compensates for this.

– Option 5: Reduces feed wastage and overfeeding of forage and beet pulp from 15% to 5%. The farm purchases 40 t less beet pulp and cultivates 127 t less silage and 12 t less whole-crop silage. Instead, 21 t of rapeseed and 22 t of field beans are grown on the freed-up arable land for sale, generating an additional SEK 127,000. Reducing input losses also lowers the farm’s carbon footprint on the final products.

– Options 6, 7, and 8: Combine multiple scenarios. The most significant impacts result from improved milk yields, better feed conversion, reduced feed waste, and enhanced animal growth and health.