But an FAO report from 2006, ‘Livestock’s long shadow’, says livestock production is one of the major causes of the world's most pressing environmental problems, including global warming, land degradation, air and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity. FAO estimated that livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, a bigger share than that of transport. Greater efficiency in use of resources will be "the key to retracting livestock's long shadow", says FAO. With their strong and growing influence, consumers are likely to be the main source of commercial and political pressure "to push the livestock sector into more sustainable forms", ‘Livestock's long shadow’ says.

On www.milkproduction.com we intend to publish research and findings that can be of practical use for dairy farmers around the world. The aim with this is to help milk producers who want to decrease their operations’ impact on the environment as well as increase profitability.

A Swedish project from 2003 gives practical advice on how to reduce ammonia emissions on the farm >>

You will also find a list of ideas on how you can save energy on the farm>>

Under the Environment topic's section you can find articles that have been published earlier>>

If you want to read the FAO ‘Livestock’s long shadow’ report:
http://www.virtualcentre.org/en/library/key_pub/longshad/A0701E00.pdf

A link to an article from FAO summarizing the report:
http://www.fao.org/ag/magazine/0612sp1.htm

This article series in 16 chapters on Cow Comfort was produced by DeLaval, as a part of their Dairy Knowledge series. Read more>>
 

In this month's calf management articles you can learn about early weaning and about the loopholes in your on-fram protocols that can make your calves sick (with four case-stories to illustrate this):

Earlier weaning yes or no? >>

Loopholes that make calves sick >>

Jan van Ruiswijk's 55 cows milk themselves 3,2 times/day producing 500.000 kg milk/year. Jan saves four hours of milking time per day, which allows him to spend more time with the cows. The robot also allows him to go on holiday. While on a ski trip, he was able to keep track of the robot with his laptop and watch it via a web camera. He can even run the robot from his Smart phone.  Read more>>