For decades, dairy farmers have quietly improved their efficiency and environmental footprint, often without seeing a direct return on those investments. A new farmer-led initiative, EmPower+, is looking to change that by providing the data and verification to turn on-farm progress into marketplace value.
Launched by Edge Dairy Farmer Cooperative, the program acts as a bridge between the farm and the global supply chain, explains Jennifer Block, director of value chain partnerships. As food processors and retailers face pressure to report “Scope 3” emissions — those occurring directly on the farm — EmPower+ gives producers a way to quantify their successes in areas like genetics, nutrition, and manure management.
The program operates in three stages: data collection to establish a baseline, scenario planning to identify the best business investments, and third-party verification to prove climate outcomes. By focusing on an “insetting” model, the program ensures that the value created by carbon reductions stays within the dairy industry rather than being exported to outside markets, Block says.
She emphasizes that the program’s strength lies in its “bottom-up” approach, allowing farmers to lead the conversation rather than simply reacting to corporate mandates.
“It really empowers farmers to make decisions that make sense for their business… we can just take what they want and put it into a model with data and show them the numbers, and then let the numbers drive what direction we go.”
While the marketplace value for these reductions is still evolving based on specific processor contracts, the goal is to compensate farmers for the work they are already doing.
“We have the data that shows that carbon emissions for a gallon of milk have dropped,” Block notes. “In order to capture all of that value, we need to build this tool… that verifies that the practices the farmers have made on their farms have actually caused a reduction.”
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