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Tricarico said. “The last thing we want to do is Much of the increase in productivity is likely
give the cows indigestion,” he said. to come from technology — the satellites, soil
Worldwide, animal agriculture accounts for sensors, computer modeling and data-crunching
14.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions, accord- that will provide usable information for growers.
ing to the United Nations’ Food and Agricul- “There’s a ton of technology that’s embedded
ture Organization. In the U.S., however, cows into accelerating the process of improving soil
and other ruminants make up about 4% of all health,” says Dorn Cox of the Wolfe’s Neck
GHGs, and beef cattle just 2% of direct emis- Center, which is working with corporate, gov-
sions, according to University of California, ernment and nonprofit partners to develop an
Davis, professor and air quality expert Frank Open Technology Ecosystem for Agricultural
Mitloehner. Management (OpenTEAM) that promises to
He says U.S. dairy operations represent 2% of provide farmers access to site-specific data by
GHGs. “Though the overall dairy contribution 2024.
to U.S. GHG production is modest, enteric “We’re moving into essentially managing much
methane emissions (CH4), including gas pro- more complex systems, especially in light of
duced by the cow’s digestive system and released climate change,” says Cox. Much of what
by flatulence and burps, account for approxi- OpenTEAM is doing, he says, is trying to tie
mately 1/3 of a dairy farm’s GHG footprint,” together all the different tools that are avail-
says the Newtrient report, of which Mitloehner able, including artificial intelligence, remote
is an author. sensing, lower-cost edge computing devices,

“Believe it or not, nearly 60% of emissions cre- and analytics.
ated globally during milk production come in the “A lot of those pieces are there, but they haven’t
form of enteric methane, released into the atmo- been connected into a coherent ecosystem that’s
sphere burp by burp. A single dairy cow can gen- useful for a researcher or producer,” he says.
erate three tons of CO equivalent every year,” Rates of adoption for precision agriculture vary
2
says DSM, a Dutch company that has developed
feed additives the company says will reduce a widely by region, says Curt Blades, senior vice
president for agriculture and forestry at the
ruminant’s methane emissions by about 30%.
Association of Equipment Manufacturers, which
Researchers also are trying to breed more is releasing a study early next year on the envi-
feed-efficient cows, but the genetic advances are ronmental benefits of precision agriculture.
likely still years away.
Citing USDA data, he says yield monitors are
PRECISION AG being used by 69% of growers, and auto-steer,
which enables farmers to precisely navigate their
Benefit: Equipment that allows farmers fields, is being used about by two-thirds, though
to target inputs more precisely means they rates are higher when looking only at row crops.
can use less fertilizer and chemicals. Use of variable rate technology, allowing preci-

Prospects: Improvements in the farm sion application of inputs, stands at about 41%,
economy could encourage new equipment he said. “Where you really unlock the power
purchases. of a yield monitor is when you tie it to a map”
showing the conditions in a field, allowing grow-
Challenges: Cost, and in some ers to pinpoint which area might need more fer-
cases inadequate internet access. tilizer or which might need more water, he says.

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