Achieving net zero dairy farming

by John Webster (Editor), John Webster (Contribution by), Mohammed Ramin (Contribution by), C. Alan Rotz (Contribution by), António Monteiro (Contribution by)

Overview

To meet the targets outlined in the 2015 Paris Agreement, many countries are actively working towards reaching climate neutrality and achieving net zero by 2050. With the livestock sector estimated to contribute approximately 11-17% of global greenhouse gas emissions, more research and innovation is required to understand the cause of these emissions and how they can be reduced.

Achieving net zero dairy farming provides a detailed insight into the fundamental processes within the dairy cow and those that occur on dairy farms that contribute to and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The book also considers the range of strategies which can be implemented to support the transition to net zero, including improving housing and housing management, supplementing diets with methane-inhibiting feed additives and optimising manure/slurry application.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781835450192
Publisher:	Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing
Publication date:	01/27/2026
Series:	Burleigh Dodds Series in Agricultural Science , #171
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400

About the Author

Dr John Webster is Emeritus Professor in Animal Husbandry at the University of Bristol, UK. He established the Animal Welfare and Behaviour Group at the University of Bristol, one of the largest and most highly-regarded of its kind in the world, and was a founder member of the Farm Animal Welfare Council which pioneered the Five Freedoms for farm animals. Professor Webster is editor of an earlier Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing volume: Achieving sustainable production of milk Volume 3: Dairy herd management and welfare (published in 2017). Other key books written or edited by Professor Webster include Understanding the Dairy Cow and Animal Husbandry Regained: the place of farm animals in sustainable agriculture.

Dr C. Al Rotz is an Agricultural Engineer with the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service. Dr Rotz’s research activities are diverse, but all have involved experimental evaluation of machinery systems and the development, evaluation, and use of mathematical models of agricultural production systems.
Dr Luis O. Tedeschi is a Professor, Texas A&M AgriLife Research Fellow, and Chancellor EDGES Fellow at the Department of Animal Science, and an Honorary Professor at the Dipartimento di Scienze Agraria at the University of Sassari, Italy. He is recognized internationally for his accomplishments in the modeling nutrition of ruminants.
Dr Susanne Wiesner is an Associate Professor at the Technical University of Denmark, in the Department of Environmental and Resource Engineering, in the group Waste, Climate and Modelling. Her research focuses on agricultural sustainability, greenhouse gas emissions and energy and water fluxes from natural and managed ecosystems.

Table of Contents

Part 1 Fundamentals and measurement on the dairy farm

• 1.Overall nutrients and energy flows within the dairy cow: John Webster, University of Bristol, UK;
• 2.Advances in understanding methane production in the dairy cow: Mohammed Ramin, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden;
• 3.Assessing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from different types of dairy farm: C. Alan Rotz, USDA-ARS, USA;
• 4.Water use on dairy farms: António Monteiro, Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, Portugal;
• 5.Measuring methane emissions from individual dairy farms: Luis O. Tedeschi, Texas A&M University, USA;

Part 2 Strategies to achieve net zero: Supporting the dairy cow

• 6.Genetics and breeding for reduced methane emissions: Anouk van Breukelen, Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands;
• 7.Improving individual animal productivity/feed conversion efficiency: Robin R. White, Virginia Tech, USA;
• 8.Improving housing and housing management to reduce/manage emissions and waste: Pol Llonch, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain;
• 9.Use of methane-inhibiting feed additives/inhibitors: John Newbold, SRUC, UK;

Part 3 Strategies to achieve net zero: System-level improvements

• 10.Manure management and processing: Alice Rocha, University of California-Davis, USA;
• 11.Optimising manure/slurry application on the farm: Shabtai Bittman, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Canada;
• 12.Methane utilisation on dairy farms: Sigrid Kusch-Brandt, University of Southampton, UK;
• 13.Dairy farming and water catchment management: David J. Horne, Massey University, New Zealand;
• 14.Integrating dairy farming and crop production: Susanne Wiesner, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA;

Part 4 Conclusion

• 15.Achieving net zero: weighing the options arising from new understanding: John Webster, University of Bristol, UK;