Farming Methane – June 16, 2023

Could methane from manure become so lucrative that big dairies will end up farming for cow poop rather than milk? Photo by Daniel Farrell. One of California’s primary emissions reduction strategies — manure digester projects that capture methane from dairy and hog farms and refine it into  “renewable natural gas.” — could not only be prolonging the state’s dependence on natural gas, tying it with the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standards and offsets programs could also be promoting the expansion of Concentrated Animal Feedlots (CAFOS) and all the environmental and justice problems associated with them. Terra Verde host and Earth Island Journal editor Maureen Nandini Mitra talks with Jeremy Martin, Director of Fuels Policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Clean Transportation Program, and Sarah D’Onofrio, sociologist and educator who recently completed a dissertation on digesters on dairy farms and how they are a “false solution” to climate change, about this emerging issue at the nexus of California’s climate policy, agriculture, and environmental justice. The post Farming Methane – June 16, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.