By Eric Jenks
Graphic courtesy of Dr. Kristan Reed.
For over 20 years, the feed and dairy industries have been making headway on reducing their environmental impact through the reduction of phosphorus in the feed used for dairy cattle. “It was the late 1990’s when people started talking about phosphorus in feed,” said Dr. Larry Chase, professor emeritus from Cornell University’s Department of Animal Science. “Dr. Larry Satter from the University of Wisconsin and the Dairy Forage Research Center which is a USDA facility, it was his group that were really getting concerned about the environmental impacts of phosphorus in feed. Research was showing that we could lower phosphorus levels (which is the most expensive mineral in feed), decrease excretion and keep dairy performance high.”
The northeastern feed industry reacted swiftly to the news about phosphorus ratios. “When his (Satter) work came out, we started taking a look at feed rations and where we were at in the Northeast,” said Chase. “And we started to look at ways that we could reduce it. We did a small trial at Cornell to verify the Wisconsin results, and around 2001 the National Research Council put out the revised dairy nutrition numbers where they implemented a lower phosphorus requirement. That same year we challenged the feed industry to adopt the new recommendations, and within a year they made that adjustment. The feed industry really stepped up and implemented it very quickly. They should get the credit for making this phosphorus change happen in NY, and the dairymen should get credit for feeding the rations designed by the industry person.”
In the past 20 years, a lot has changed in New York’s dairy industry. According to the recent white paper released by Chase and Dr. Kristan Reed, Assistant Professor at Cornell University’s Department of Animal Science and the Northeast Agribusiness and Feed Alliance Partners Sesquicentennial Fellow in Dairy Cattle Biology, the number of dairy cows in the state has decreased by 10.5%, production per cow has increased 40.4%, the ration of phosphorus is down by 18.8% and farm balances of phosphorus has decreased by 51%. According to Chase the increase in production is not linked to the change in phosphorus. “Milk production in the US over the last 40-60 years, there’s been an increase every year. It’s due to genetics, herd management, and better feed and nutrition.” To read the paper, part of Cornell’s Animal Science Publication Series (No. 253), click here.
Tackling environmental challenges on the farm and in the feed industry doesn’t stop at phosphorus. “Our dairymen are very progressive towards being environmentally friendly,” said Chase. “The pressure will continue to make as close to a closed loop system as we can, and the more that we can share the progressive and responsible actions that are taken, that’s a win for the industry, society, and environment.”
Reed’s current work builds off of all of the environmental and nutritional work that has taken place in the last several decades, so that the industry can focus on whole farm management instead of just one or two individual areas. “The focus now is looking at farms from a systems perspective, to not focus solely on the animal or the field or one practice here, or a nutrient at a time, but to understand how all those pieces fit together,” said Reed. “If you put together all of these systems under certain weather patterns, what are the impacts going to be on the production for high quality food products and the environment. You have to look at water use, greenhouse gas emissions, and water quality. So one place to start is with a program like Larry’s for feed management, you setup a program to ensure that the cattle’s diets are in line with the recommendations and that they’re not over feeding, especially nitrogen and phosphorus. Then you could look at whole farm nutrient mass balance and manure management, to see if there are opportunities to improve storage system at optimal times, etc. The point of why we need a systems model is that there’s no one management recommendation that fixes everything. It’s all very farm and environment specific as to what the best decisions are from an environmental, herd health, and profitability standpoint.
“Usually when we talk with dairymen about this, we indicate that this is an opportunity to improve profitability by being better managers of resources,” said Chase. “We can maintain or increase milk production, lower feed cost, lower excretion in the environment (which is a benefit to the society on a whole) and make better use of feed nutrients, while also reducing environmental impacts and overall costs, that get’s their attention.”