Emerald Dairy Tour II

Thanks Pete for putting this up on the blog. I was getting ready to type something up, and saw that you did it. The tour was just amazing. A couple more points that I would like to add.

1. John also discussed the idea of having a carbon footprint on the packaging of dairy products. Personally, I think this would be huge for the farmers and producers that would want to take part and the state as a whole. More and more people are looking at how what they do and what they eat impact the environment. Wisconsin dairy is already known around the world (we produce more types of cheese than France), and placing the environmental impact of producing that block of cheese, gallon of milk, etc. would put Wisconsin so much farther ahead of its competition. California, take that. As was stated yesterday, imagine what the carbon footprint would be for cheese grown in many parts of California as opposed to Wisconsin. I have read about discussions about this very topic in Europe. Innovative and dynamic indeed and we, right here in western Wisconsin, are ready to lead the way. This is a perfect example how paying attention to impacts on the environment can stimulate economies.

2. The company Integrated Separation Solutions is working collaboratively with John with the separation of the manure and getting the different end products after the majority of the solids are produced for the bedding. We met a couple gentlemen from ISS that were up for the week from Madison keeping track of the data from the system at the dairy. They stated that right now, this product would be viable for dairies that have 700 cows or more (between John's three dairies there are 2700 cows). I think we all agree that it would be great to see this get even lower, and I am sure it will as the result of the ongoing project at Emerald Dairy, as this is the only operation like this happening in the world right now.

Stay posted for other previews and post visit commentary about the other case studies...
Wow.