Projects per year
Abstract
In 2010 the dairy farmers of Cows & Opportunities have started working on a new project goal:
gaseous emissions. To continue their role as pilot farm within the future developments in the dairy sector new goals have been added to their original goals on optimizing the nitrogen en phosphorus cycle: reducing greenhouse gas emissions and ammonia. The ultimate goal for 2013 was a 30%
reduction of the average greenhouse gas emission of nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4) together, relative to the average Dutch dairy farm in 1990. In addition to the reduction of greenhouse gases, a second aim was to further reduce ammonia (NH3) emissions with 10% relative to the individual farm level in 2009.
In 2009 the autonomously achieved reduction on greenhouse gas emissions turned out to be 29%, and this was further improved to 31% in 2013, reaching the project goal. This improvement was reached by both a reduction of N2O and CH4. The reduction of the N2O emission reached already 56% in 2009, but unexpectedly grew to 62% in 2013, partly by an increase in production intensity (kg FPCM per ha). The reduction of CH4 emission was less substantial, starting at 12% in 2009 and fluctuating around 13% in 2010-2013.
The second aim was to further reduce NH3 emissions to an average of 3.2 kg NH3 per 1000 kg FPCM (10% reduction relative to the individual farm level in 2009). This was reached in 2013, showing that this goal was realistic even while working on other project goals like CH4 reduction in parallel. The decline in the NH3 emission is mainly achieved at the project farms situated on sandy soils and peat, while the emission of project farms on clay soils stayed relatively constant.
Farm-specific circumstances such as the weather and roughage quality will influence the effect of measurements, thereby causing fluctuations in the emissions over the years. Working on the reduction of gaseous emissions is however possible on the average Dutch dairy farm and may lead to a
reduction of 25% relative to 1990, looking at the autonomous reduction already reach in Cows & Opportunities in 2009. Further reduction of greenhouse gas emissions will cost more effort. If 50% of the Dutch dairy farmers also reaches a decrease in NH3 emission in 2020 comparable to the farmers in Cows & Opportunities have reached in 2013, the emission of the dairy sector wil be 3.6 kg NH3 per 1000 kg FPCM. Dairy farmers will however need high management skills, as they have to run a complex farming system and work simultaneously on a variety of financial, social and environmental objectives all-year.
Original language | Dutch |
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Place of Publication | Wageningen |
Publisher | Wageningen UR Livestock Research |
Number of pages | 33 |
Publication status | Published - 2016 |
Publication series
Name | Rapport / Koeien & Kansen |
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Publisher | Wageningen UR Livestock Research |
No. | nr. 76 |
ISSN (Print) | 0169-3689 |
Keywords
- greenhouse gases
- emission
- measures
- ammonia emission
- emission reduction
- air quality
- farm management
- dairy farms
- sustainable animal husbandry
- dairy farming
Projects
- 4 Finished
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AF-16137a Meerwaarde Mest en Mineralen 2; K&K (BO-55-001-003, BO-47-001-024, BO-22.04-029-001)
de Haan, M. (Project Leader)
1/01/17 → 31/12/20
Project: LVVN project
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Koeien & kansen (BO-31.03-002-002, BO-12.12-004-002)
de Haan, M. (Project Leader)
1/01/12 → 31/12/16
Project: LVVN project
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Koeien en Kansen (BO-12.02-009-002)
de Haan, M. (Project Leader)
1/01/11 → 31/12/11
Project: LVVN project