General Development Impact of increasing milk yield in dairy farming on greenhouse gas emissions

The increase in milk yield per cow in dairy farms has been proposed as one strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) per kg of product. However, besides milk beef can be considered as an important co-product of dairy farming. Thus, the whole system of milk and beef production has to be considered modelling GHG emissions from dairy farming. In order to remain milk and beef production constant suckler cows are needed to compensate for the reduction in beef output from dairy farming due to the increase in milk yield. If both milk and beef production are to remain constant, considerably increasing milk yield per cow could result in higher GHG emissions. Furthermore other side effects of increasing milk yield in dairy farming as competition with human food due to changing amounts of concentrates need to be mentioned.