Wisconsin's Organic Valley dairy co-op focused on carbon 'insetting'

Greenhouse-gas emissions have overall been falling in the U.S., but agriculture's contributions have been consistently rising in recent decades.

Organic Valley wants to reverse that trend through a process it calls carbon "insetting" — as opposed to "offsetting" emissions.

"We're looking at projects at the farm level that sequester carbon or draw it down from the atmosphere and lock it in the soil," said Nicole Rakobitsch, sustainability director for the Wisconsin-based dairy and egg cooperative.

While many farms and food companies have embraced regenerative agriculture and carbon sequestration, Organic Valley recently announced it intends to be the first major dairy producer to recapture all of its emissions on-farm as opposed to offsetting them through outside investments.

"We're going to invest in our farmer-owners and help make even more improvements related to climate," Rakobitsch said, "paying farmers per ton of carbon."

Organic Valley, which has operations in 34 states, calls its approach carbon "insetting" — as opposed to offsetting.

The different approaches boil down to on-farm practices like soil management and tree planting versus off-farm investments in renewable energy or carbon credits.

Farmers Tucker and Becky Gretebeck jumped at the opportunity. Initial projects will see a thousand trees planted and improved manure management on their 100-acre grass-fed dairy farm in Cashton, Wis.

"We've been talking about this for years, what our next steps might be," Tucker Gretebeck said. "Carbon offsetting is not exactly getting us to where we need to be. We need new projects."

Agriculture accounts for 10% of greenhouse-gas emissions in the U.S., according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and dairy production is about one-third of that.

While total U.S. emissions fell almost 10% between 2005 and 2019, agriculture emissions jumped 7% in that time, according to the EPA.

That's largely a result of a billion more mouths to feed worldwide and major growth in "emission-intensive liquid systems" for manure management, according to the EPA.

Turning back that emission growth will take better manure management, one of several areas Organic Valley is focusing its efforts.

"The way you manage your manure, moving toward a dry system will have less methane, and increasing the feed efficiency would reduce methane," Rakobitsch said.

While Organic Valley's focus is on carbon neutrality, the bulk of farm emissions come from nitrous oxide and methane. Those greenhouse gases are converted into carbon equivalents, for the sake of comparison, though such a simplification can miss the complexity of how farm-produced gases behave in the atmosphere.

Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas that cows and their manure emit in great quantities.

The "biogenic" methane produced by cattle breaks down into carbon dioxide in about a decade and is part of a natural cycle, unlike fossil fuel emissions that build up in the atmosphere, according to a University of California Davis report.

"That carbon is the same carbon that was in the air prior to being consumed by an animal. It is recycled carbon," the report says. "As long as herd emissions remain constant for more than 12 years, no additional methane — or warming — is being added to the atmosphere in the biogenic carbon cycle."

But the world population of dairy cows and beef cattle is expected to grow significantly alongside the world's population of humans over the next several decades, adding more methane into the atmosphere on a regular basis. That puts more pressure on farmers and dairy companies to find ways to reduce, offset or capture these emissions.

Hormel Foods is offsetting its carbon footprint through an investment in Oklahoma wind energy, for example.

Truterra, a Land O'Lakes subsidiary, pays farmers for "carbon-dioxide removals" through soil management and depending on the program pays $2 per acre or $20 per ton of carbon sequestered.

Truterra said Monday it will continue selling carbon credits to Microsoft to incentivize more carbon capturing on farms. Last year the tech giant paid farmers $4 million to remove 200,000 tons of CO2-equivalent gases from the atmosphere.

"It is investments such as this that are helping transform agriculture, not only as a way to improve the profitability of the farmers we serve and help address climate change, but also as a way to improve the quality of the soils we rely on for food, feed, fuel and fiber," Jamie Ridgely, Truterra's carbon operations lead, said in a statement.

Organic Valley farmers are already engaging in regenerative agriculture practices that reduce emissions, but those efforts will now be quantified, Rakobitsch said.

Adding another benefit to Organic Valley's label can also help persuade more consumers to spend the extra money. Last week, a half-gallon container of organic milk was $2.88 more expensive, on average, than conventional milk, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The Gretebecks have already diversified to keep up with the rising costs to farm, including a pumpkin patch that draws thousands of visitors in the fall.

So to implement practices that bring in revenue and benefit the land — more shade for cows means healthier grazing patterns, and maybe the trees planted produce hazelnuts — is another boost for the fifth-generation family farm.

Gretebeck hopes the initiative and real-world results can serve as a model for others.

"It makes a difference having something that other people look at and say: 'Yeah, we can do that.'"