Case Studies
A Tale of Two Dairies: Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation on Large and Small Dairy Farms in New York State
Dairy farmers are experiencing climate impacts, but a farm’s ability to adapt depends in part on its size and finances.
Climate change is a growing issue for the roughly 4600 dairy farmers across New York State.1 The impacts of climate change vary based on landscape, location, and type of operation. Dairies in the state vary tremendously in size; most farms milk between 20 to 99 cows, with about 140 large dairies milking over 1000 cows, representing 40% of the milk production and cows in New York.1 A farm’s ability to adapt to climate change depends on its size and finances, with many farms less able to make changes due to lack of labor or capital. This case study examines climate change impacts on two dairy farms of different sizes in New York State and compares their ability to adapt.
Highlights
- Like all farmers, dairy farmers are experiencing climate impacts that cost farms time and money.
- A farm’s ability to adapt to climate change depends in part on its size and finances.
- Considering farms’ sizes and incomes in decision-making around adaptation—and funding for adaptation—can help policymakers and government agencies support farms of all sizes.
Stein Farms
Dale Stein owns a large family dairy farm in Western New York with his brother Ray and his son, niece, and nephew. Located in the town of Leroy, Stein Farms has 1015 cows and 850 youngstock. The Steins work 2100 acres of land for animal feed; they own 50% of this acreage and rent the other 50%. Dale Stein has also served for many years as the chair of the New York State Soil and Water Conservation Committee.
According to Stein, Stein Farms is experiencing greater climate impacts than in past years. He expects these impacts will become even more extreme in the future. “I wouldn’t say that I was convinced 10 years ago that climate change was going to get really bad…but I believe it is going to now if we don’t do anything,” he says. In 2022, Stein cited drought as the greatest threat to Stein Farms: “We’ve always had a history of being droughty here in the summer, but now they’re lasting longer, and this year is a lot worse. We’re getting more and more droughty summers. We are in a bad drought now as we have not had a full inch of rain since the middle of May.” Drought affects crops for animal feed, costing Stein Farms time and money. Stein explained the economic impact of droughts for their farm: “If it continues, we will have to chop all the corn for silage and have none for grain. Last year we bought $90,000 in corn grain. This year, due to drought, if the price of grain was the same as last year, we will have to buy $480,000 in grain.” The farm is also affected by extreme rainfall events, increasing pest pressure, and heat stress.
The Hunt Stein Farms remains profitable largely because Stein and his family have access to land, labor, and capital. The family has proactively adopted new practices to make the farm as efficient and sustainable as possible, which has helped reduce risk and increase profits. For example, the Steins built new infrastructure to collect and use water efficiently. They installed a cover and flare system for their manure lagoon, which traps and burns off methane gas, minimizes odors, and reduces the amount of water hauled with manure. The Steins collect water from the top of the cover and from farm buildings. They installed tile lines to drain one field into a storage pond, which acts as a source for irrigation when water is scarce. The family also installed an irrigation system extending from their pond that can cover 137 acres. Their plan is to install a second irrigation system to cover an additional 90 acres.
Stein believes in improving the farm’s soil health, which provides climate adaptation benefits and also reduces greenhouse gases. This includes cover cropping, a method that Stein and his family have practiced for 15 years. They grow corn for silage and grain, alfalfa and sorghum for silage, and triticale for silage and grain. A major challenge for farmers in New York State is planting the winter cover crop after the corn is harvested but early enough for the crop to establish before the weather becomes too cold. Cover crops have known climate resilience benefits, but more research is needed on winter-hardy cover crop varieties.
Like all dairy farms in New York State, Stein Farms suffers from heat stress. Stein and his family have built a climate-controlled barn with insulation, ceiling fans, and side curtains to keep the building cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Cows get a cooling shower three times a day in the summer, which greatly increases milk yield and profits.
Stein Farms has a full-time manager to assist with applications for grants and financial incentive programs, giving the Steins the ability to implement new technology and practices. According to Stein, “The cost share programs make a huge difference for farmers being able to adapt.” However, Stein has a message for policymakers on farmers’ ability to adapt to climate change: “The policies and rules made at the state level must be science-based and must be affordable for the farmer, or financial assistance [for example, grant funding] must accompany them. Too many decisions made at the state level are being made without considering how expensive they are for farmers to meet them. Climate policies need to include a focus on providing incentives for carbon sequestration and include funding for pilot research trials.”
New Moon Farms
New Moon Farms is a small family-owned and operated dairy farm in rural Madison County. Owners Sarah and Chris Ficken met while studying at Cornell University and decided they wanted to live and farm together after graduation.
The Fickens, who have three young children, own 100 hilly acres that include the farmstead, barns, 20 acres of woods, and pasture. They also rent about 150 additional acres. Their farm has 60 milking cows and about 40 heifers and dry cows (100 cows in total). Unlike other young farmers who work on farms that are already owned by family, the Fickens had to take out a mortgage to buy their farm. They hope to pay off the mortgage in 10 years, which makes their profit margins tight. Their farm supports one and a half full-time employees, but Sarah Ficken also has an off-farm job to bring in extra income and provide health insurance for the family.
Uncertainty over costs and the overall dairy market makes long-term planning difficult for the Fickens. “It’s hard to invest in the farm when there is so much uncertainty about whether or not dairy prices will break even, or if the milk company will come pick up the milk in the future,” they said. Their work is physically grueling, and mental health stress is acute for them and neighboring small farms. The Fickens mentioned that many of these farms have disappeared: “We used to be able to see many small farms across the hills, and now there are only three farms left in this valley.”
Climate change creates more challenges for the Fickens, making stresses such as mental health more severe. “Water management is the most challenging issue we face, whether it’s too much water in a short period of time or too little water, like this year. Right now, the farm is very dry. We are borderline okay, but we have been getting our rainstorms just in time. We would have been in a lot of trouble if the rain had missed us, and we may still be in trouble with how dry it has been,” said Sarah Ficken.
The Fickens understood that the climate was changing when they went into farming, and they have worked to build a resilient farm, including a new barn with passive ventilation to counter rising temperatures. But while the heat index was above the threshold for milk production for 10 days the year that they bought the farm, last year it was above the threshold for more than 25 days, which affected milk yields. The Fickens invested in fans for the milking parlor in hopes of adapting to the trend of increasing extreme heat, salvaging the fans from other farms that had gone out of business.
To further adapt to climate change, the Fickens built a barn for their cows with a composted bed. The composted bed is an alternative to tie-stall or free-stall housing for dairy cows and improves manure management and cow comfort. It lets the cows stand on a bed of sawdust instead of on concrete, provides storage for 90% of their manure, minimizes methane emissions, and allows spent material to double as compost for the fields. The composted bed also helps the Fickens with timing and labor associated with heavy rainfall events, since they do not have to go out as often to spread manure on the fields or manage a large manure lagoon.
Like Dale Stein at Stein Farms, Chris and Sarah Ficken are serious about improving soil health at New Moon Farms to boost climate resilience. They experiment with different crop rotations year-to-year, and almost always plant triticale (a type of grain) as a winter annual double crop to harvest as forage for the cows. Their goal is to have most of their fields covered at all times. Their switch to no-till farming in 2015 proved difficult when a dry year in 2016 almost put them out of business, but they learned and made changes to return to profitable margins. Soil samples collected in 2016 and again in 2020 showed substantial improvements in soil health metrics. “Our soils went from 2.7% to 6.0% organic matter, which is a huge jump,” said Sarah Ficken.
Sarah Ficken started a small business called NY Farm Basket to provide direct marketing of farm products from her farm and neighboring farms that align with commitments to fair wages and climate stewardship. With these adaptations, the Fickens hope to continue to farm sustainably, make a profit, and enjoy their work despite the long days. While large farms like Stein Farms have access to capital and labor to adapt to climate change, small farms like New Moon Farms struggle to fund their improvements. The Fickens feel strongly that government agencies should ensure that smaller farms like theirs can access grants and incentive programs so that not all funding goes to the largest farms. “It’s really important that small farms that are doing the right thing can get access to government supports for climate change adaptation and mitigation. Otherwise, the government subsidies will be just another factor driving small farms out of business,” said Sarah Ficken.
References
1. U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service. (2022). 2021–2022 agricultural statistics annual bulletin: New York.