As California regulators weigh whether to phase out avoided methane crediting under the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), I’m reminded of my years living on a dairy ranch on the Marin Coast. Back in the early 1990s, the ranch was a traditional family-run dairy, and typical for the North Bay – a few hundred acres, a couple hundred Holsteins pasture-fed in spring, silage-fed in fall. I didn’t work there; it was just where I returned at night, and that was well and good. At close range, dairying is a messy, muddy, relentless business and the ranch was struggling against the trend towards computerization, an evolution in consumer tastes, and a federal milk pricing system that exactly no one has understood, since it arrived in the New Deal.
Next door however, a lot was happening at the Straus’ dairy. Rancher Albert Straus was “going organic” with strict feed, fencing, and grazing regimes, no chemical fertilizers, no growth hormones, and no antibiotics. Today, 30 years after Straus became the first, fully organic dairy in the U.S., 11 other organic dairies now feed into Straus Family Creamery, and Straus products are ubiquitous in stores and restaurants across Northern California. In the meantime, 85 percent of Marin’s dairy industry has now gone organic.
More germane to the LCFS are these carbon reduction milestones in the ranch’s timeline:
2004: Straus secured state and federal grants to partially fund the installation of a methane digester over its manure pond. This as another “first” for dairying in the North Bay. Electricity generated from the process was soon covering most, and then all, of their needs.
2017: Straus introduced the first EV truck and loader to be fully powered by methane produced on the ranch.
2019: Straus partnered with BMW to install an advanced biodigester, as part of the carmaker’s ChargeForward program, with credits generated under LCFS program. Straus now works to help its supplier dairies install digesters, too.
2023: Following a successful pilot at Straus, the FDA authorized commercial use of a red seaweed supplement for dairy feed. In addition to being highly nutritious, the supplement also inhibits the production of methane in the cow’s first stomach, reducing burping by 50 to 90 percent. This should elicit more than a smile, as cow burps account for four percent of the globe’s greenhouse gases.
As you might expect, Straus Family Creamery is a participant and enthusiast of California’s highly successful LCFS, as the ranch continues to improve operations and iterate toward the future. The company’s goal, for itself and its supplier dairies, is to reach full carbon neutrality by 2030.
It’s clear that the installation of methane digesters and consumption of biogas have had positive climate impacts, especially when you consider that the Straus ranch numbers only around 300 head of cattle. Indeed, the LCFS has been a critical tool to help small dairies survive and remain competitive en route to whatever’s next, seaweed or beyond.