More Your Farm-Your Footprint grants now available
Producers: cover up to 2,500 acres of your dairy; data remains confidential
Why now, and why should farmers take a strong look at capitalizing on this?
- Professional Dairy Producers (PDP) is committed to giving more dairy farmers the opportunity to know their farm’s environmental footprint score in complete confidence, eliminating the worry of who may get access to their data.
- Beginning Nov. 1, PDP will offer to the first 100 dairy farmers grants up to $9,750 per farm (covering up to 2,500 acres) to confidentially learn their farm’s environmental footprint score and understand how it is calculated.
- We understand producers may be skeptical of signing on to environmental, carbon, or sustainability initiatives because of uncertainties regarding data access, ownership and potential use of their data.
- PDP’s Your Farm – Your FootprintTM initiative puts dairy farmers in complete control of their farm’s environmental score, giving them a confidential space to understand their farm’s environmental footprint. This includes learning their farm’s score as confirmed by three different tools, understanding how the tools calculated and identified the highest-impact practices, as well as practical recommendations to improve their score. Equipped with their score, farmers can then decide how best to use that information on their farm – and with whom to share their results. Bottom line: it puts dairy farmers in the driver’s seat with their data and their farm’s environmental footprint.
- PDP’s Your Farm – Your Footprint was created by farmers for farmers, who know how important it is to farmers to maintain the rights to their own data. This producer-led sustainability initiative works directly with dairy farmers to help them know and understand their carbon and greenhouse gas metrics. Most importantly, it gives producers the tools they need so they can use the information to position their dairies for the future.
- PDP’s Your Farm – Your Footprint provides producers with grants to participate in an unbiased and data-protected approach that includes:
- Measuring their farm’s sustainability score, including a full report of both carbon and methane emissions while giving credit for current practices such as no-till, cover crops and other conservation practices
- A customized roadmap of recommendations with practical steps to improve their score
- An opportunity to participate in peer groups to share ideas and best practices in a safe, confidential environment
- All PDP’s Your Farm – Your Footprint grants to dairy farmers are funded by Dairy’s Foundation®, which raises funds and awards grants to support educational initiatives such as these to build a professional, proactive, and prepared dairy sector united through continuous improvement.
- Our goal is to help farmers position their farms for the future, while looking out for their best interest. PDP believes PDP’s Your Farm – Your Footprint can accelerate dairy’s sustainability movement by enabling dairy farmers first and foremost to confidentially and confidently know their individual farm footprint score. Farmers then will be in a better position to make informed decisions about how to manage their score and explore other sustainability program offers.
- With this current increased grant offer, now is the time for dairy farmers to capture this opportunity to establish their farm’s environmental footprint baseline.
Your Farm – Your Footprint puts dairy farmers in control of an important asset – their farm’s environmental footprint score. With this knowledge producers can make informed decisions to drive changes on their farm and lead the industry discussion to reduce the environmental impact of milk production, helping secure U.S. dairy’s future.
Learn more about Your Farm – Your Footprint by watching the video below.
Many organizations are offering various solutions to help farmers reduce their farm’s environmental footprint. Your Farm – Your Footprint empowers you to know your own farm’s environmental footprint data so you can make informed decisions, control your own data, and shape your farm’s future. As the adage says: “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” Think about how we use somatic cell counts to measure and improve milk quality. Your Farm – Your Footprint is a standardized way to measure and improve.
We know that U.S. dairy producers are the most productive and sustainable in the world. But our global customers want proof of our commitment to environmental sustainability and continuous improvement. Retaining U.S. dairy’s strong position as a preferred global supplier requires measuring and reducing the environmental impact of producing dairy products. Farm-level strategies will help the U.S. dairy community remain competitive in both domestic and export markets.
Your farm is your livelihood. The PDP farmer board believes farmers shouldn’t wait for someone to tell you what to do. There is no downside to getting your baseline environmental farm footprint score now. Knowing your score allows you to be more informed and puts you in the driver’s seat of any decision to make changes that impact your farm and to help shape this discussion for the industry.
Farmers who participated in the pilot were shocked at how easy it was to get their scores, especially when they had field data, and nutrient management and production records available. Participants reported they had most of the needed data readily available. Once the third party receives all of the necessary data from the farm, it takes 45-60 business days to receive completed reports. They also found it interesting to learn how the Cool Farm Tool and FARM ES worked and how their current practices impacted their scores.
Up to 90% of the program cost for the first 2,500 acres is covered by program sponsors through this initiative. Individual grants are capped at $9,750. The remaining cost to individual farmers varies by farm size. If you are interested in knowing how this works with your individual farm, please enter your information in the calculator below.
Cost Calculator For Your Farm - Your Footprint
A third-party expert will schedule a follow-up call to walk you through the report, answer any questions and discuss how specific management practices could be implemented to impact your score. You’ll also be invited to a peer group of fellow dairy producers for further discussion, brainstorming and learnings about on-farm score improvements.
Our vision through this unique farmer-led approach is to help every dairy farmer know their farm’s environmental footprint scores and have a continuous improvement plan. Farmers have repeatedly told us they learn best from other farmers. PDP will offer peer group opportunities where farmers can discuss with other farmers the findings and share best practices in a safe and confidential environment. Peer groups will learn together, keeping in mind that every operation is different and practices that work for one farmer may not be practical for another. No individual farm data will be shared, only aggregated data for comparative and benchmarking purposes. Peer groups will be structured to include diverse members from different areas.
Check out this news release to learn more about the initiative.
Ready to shape your dairy’s future? PDP is inviting dairy producers to participate in the program.
Apply for the 2024 Your Farm – Your FootprintQuestions? Click here.