In New York, many dairy producers are under pressure to improve efficiency, manage nutrients and meet changing environmental expectations. When a producer considers a new conservation practice, the deciding factors are usually practical ones: whether it works on a farm like theirs, whether it makes economic sense and whether they trust it enough to invest.
In August, nearly 100 farmers, dairy industry professionals and conservation partners spent two days in western New York looking at those questions up close. On Aug. 19, attendees toured Coyne Farms in Avon, where manure management, methane reduction, soil health and nutrient management practices are part of daily operations on a working dairy. On Aug. 20, farmers, processors, cooperatives, lenders, advisors and conservation organizations met in Rochester to discuss how the state’s dairy sector can keep growing while building on its conservation record.
Manure as a Resource at Coyne Farms
Liam Coyne, whose family hosted the field day, said the farm’s thinking about manure has increasingly focused on getting more value from something the operation already produces.
The farm runs slurry manure through a solid-liquid separator. The separated fiber is recycled as cow bedding, and the liquid goes into covered storage, where methane is captured and flared.
“As we’ve learned the important value of manure and what it can offer for us on the dairy side as well as in growing crops, we’ve been able to invest in these technologies to help better utilize that product as a value-added product to our business,” Coyne said.
Kirsten Workman, Senior Extension Associate with Cornell PRO-DAIRY, said seeing these practices together on one farm shows how manure handling, crop production and environmental performance are connected. Between recycled bedding, methane capture and field applications that return nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium to crops, the farm is “maximizing their manure as a resource and not as a waste product,” she said.
Attendees also watched manure being injected directly into grassland. Bridgett Hilshey of Dairy Management Inc. said injection is a practice with both agronomic and environmental value because it helps preserve manure nitrogen and substantially reduces odor compared with surface application.
Hilshey said demonstrations like this help producers sort through the growing number of products and technologies being marketed to them.
“There’s so much coming out in this space, it’s hard to know what’s snake oil and what might be right for their farm,” she said. “Being able to see some of this in action is really important to support that long-term decision making.”
Connecting Farmers With Programs
Along with the equipment and practices, attendees learned about technical assistance, funding and planning resources that can help farms evaluate and pay for changes. Field day survey results suggest many producers had not yet come across those resources.
Of event survey respondents, 96.3% said they learned about a conservation, financial or management program they had not known about before. They named conservation easement and farm transition programs, New York climate resiliency resources, cap-and-flare funding, Dairy Conservation Navigator, Newtrient’s Solutions Catalog, RuFaS and resources for sharing conservation research and trial data.
Sixty-seven percent said they were likely or very likely to make an operational change based on something they learned at the field day, though intent does not always lead to adoption. A practice still has to fit the operation, and a producer may need financing, technical assistance or more evidence before committing to an investment. The results do show the role on-farm demonstrations and peer-to-peer learning can play for farmers who know about a practice but have not yet decided whether to use it.
Workman said early adopters are especially valuable because other producers can learn from both their successes and their setbacks. Farmers need to be able to talk openly about “the good and the bad,” she said, so others can see when a practice pays off, when financial or technical assistance is needed and where the technology still needs work.
Growth and Conservation in Rochester
At the Rochester forum, the discussion moved beyond individual practices to processing growth, farm economics, financing, conservation programs, manure innovation and the partnerships needed to move research into commercial agriculture.
After the two-day event, two-thirds of participants said they came away more confident that growth in New York’s dairy sector and the industry’s conservation goals can advance together.
Workman described what it will take to get there. “It takes the farm, it takes science, it takes money, it takes support,” she said. “It takes a neighborhood of farmers to learn from each other.”
The Aug. 19 field day was held in partnership with Trust In Food, Dairy Management Inc., The Nature Conservancy, American Dairy Association Northeast, Cornell PRO-DAIRY and Coyne Farms. Dairy Management Inc. and The Nature Conservancy convened the Aug. 20 industry forum in Rochester.
