How Climate Change Is Affecting the Cheese Industry

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the January/February print version of QA under the headline "Melting Point."

Climate change is an issue in all industries, especially livestock production. According to a 2018 study published in the journal “Science,” cheese is the fifth most significant contributor to climate change. This not only creates an opportunity for dairy farmers and cheese producers to innovate but also underlines a crucial push toward a more sustainable future of dairy.

At a lecture that discussed climate change and the cheesemaking industry, Alexandra Jones (recipient of the Daphne Zepos Research Award) discussed her findings regarding the impact and potential mitigations to climate change. The following are some of the major takeaways from her research.

THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON DAIRY. The Global North, which includes the U.S., China, Europe and India, among other countries, consume a disproportionate amount of the Earth’s resources and create a disproportionate amount of greenhouse gas emissions, said Jones. These greenhouse gas emissions cause risk to dairy farms through increased temperatures (which put heat stress on animals and can cause lower milk production and poor animal health); altered precipitation patterns (such as intense rainfall or drought); and altered growing seasons and feed availability (which could be positive in that cows can go out to pasture for longer, but it could also result in negative impacts as well) — to name a few.

All regions of the U.S. — and the entire planet — are experiencing increased climate risk.

After six years of grazing on their mountainous property, the Bobcat Fire tore through California in 2020, forcing Valyermo-based Angeles Crest Creamery to evacuate. The fire drastically altered owner Gloria Putnam’s vision for herself as a citizen scientist working toward climate change mitigation efforts. Putnam had become frustrated by the need to purchase hay for her goats from a water-stressed region and sought out a wider array of native plants at a higher altitude, but global warming forced her back to where she started.

While it may not currently be possible in the U.S., Jones brought up the idea of nomadic shepherding. “We think about seasonal, annual migration in cheese, but in the context of a fire affecting the ecosystem — a prairie or high desert forest — that migration might mean not returning to an area for many years until it has regenerated to bring your animals again,” she said. This style of farming would be more climate resilient than staying in one area for an extended period of time.

Puerto Rico copes with some of the highest temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere, making dairy more difficult to produce there.

“Last summer, they had a record- breaking heat wave that involved a handful of 120 degree [Fahrenheit] days with extreme humidity,” Jones said. This is considered “wet-bulb temperature,” a point at which humans and animals can experience extreme health issues or even death. For perspective, humans can survive for about six hours in 95 degrees Fahrenheit in direct sunlight.

Vaqueria el Remanso, a dairy farm in Puerto Rico, has addressed global warming with a new breed of cattle. Rafi López-López set out to breed thermal resistant cows so they would not be as impacted by the extreme heat. These cows, known as vacas pelonas or slick cows, produce 1,800 pounds more milk per lactation than non-slick cows. López uses a Holstein-Criollo genetic mix, which produces cattle with a thinner, slicker coat.

While López has found success, other creameries are struggling to keep up with traditional practices that are naturally climate resilient.

For Laini Fondiller at Lazy Lady Farm in Westfield, Vt., her underground aging cave has been suffering due to climate change. The cave is naturally climate controlled, so it runs without electricity, but changing weather conditions have impacted her ability to safely ripen some cheeses there. If the temperature is too high, cheeses ripen too quickly, which affects the texture. There have also been stray molds that, at a microbial level, affect the cheese.

“These are striking examples of how the effects of climate change aren’t just making business as usual more difficult, they’re making these lower-carbon and traditional production methods (like geothermal temperature control) more difficult or impossible to implement,” Jones said.

Smaller producers are used to working with the seasons, which is part of the value they bring to customers, but the impacts of climate change stifle those efforts. Those costs and issues get passed along down the supply chain, making cheese more expensive for end consumers as well as calling into question the quality of cheeses when they arrive at stores.

THE CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHEESE AND CLIMATE CHANGE. Jones pointed out that greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut by 60% globally in the next 10 years to meet the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming target set forth by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. One sector effecting change cannot do that alone, especially with the agriculture sector at just under 25% of global carbon emissions.

Climate change in agriculture is not primarily driven by transportation and packaging, Jones added, but rather, the act of farming and post-retail waste are larger contributors overall.

The issue is, “Cheese has about eight times the emissions of milk, which is probably a yield issue, because it takes 10 pounds of milk to make one pound of cheese. That could also potentially reflect factors like energy use during production or aging or storage for much longer periods than fresh milk,” Jones said.

Even prior to storage, livestock emissions are a huge issue. Methane produced by animals is the largest contributor of greenhouse gasses, said Jones, and 77% of that methane is emitted by cattle — where most cheese is derived.

Manure application and management also need to be considered.

“If your animal waste isn’t simply being worked back into the pasture without any excess or need to be stored at any time of the year, that is going to contribute significantly to carbon emissions while it’s being stored. Also, applying that waste to the land is another point where greenhouse gasses are being emitted,” Jones said.

MITIGATION TECHNIQUES. There are strategies that can reduce enteric methane emitted by livestock that continue to be developed. Bovaer, or 3-NOP, was recently approved by the FDA; it is a synthetic feed additive that claims to reduce enteric methane by up to 30% in dairy cows. Adding red algae and linseed can also help (with reductions of up to 15%), but there are few studies currently on how these additives will affect milk for cheese.

After manure production, farmers have to handle storage if there is excess. Some larger farms have opted to purchase anaerobic digesters, also called biodigesters, which were heavily subsidized by the Biden-Harris administration.

“These biodigesters capture methane gas and burn it as fuel so the methane stays out of the atmosphere. Then, the fuel can be used to power vehicles or generate electricity,” Jones said.

Occasionally, because anaerobic digesters process waste, farms have allowed for surrounding cities to bring organic waste like food scraps to be processed there as well.

“Digestate, the byproduct from biodigesters, can be used as a nutrient-rich fertilizer,” Jones added.

According to Ruthie Lazenby in her report “Rethinking Manure Biogas: Policy Considerations to Promote Equity and Protect the Climate and Environment,” biodigesters are not a cost-effective solution for small- to medium-sized farms — even with significant cost savings. The farms with anaerobic digesters predominantly boast at least 2,000 hogs or 500 cows. At that scale, these farms can have a significant impact on their communities, causing environmental degradation, odors and co-pollutants. “Because you’re storing liquid manure in these huge lagoons [for the biodigesters], there’s a risk of severe water contamination,” Jones said. “If those lagoons aren’t covered, they can increase nitrogen emissions by as much as 80% while that manure is stored. That degrades air quality and creates public health issues for the people living in those communities, who are disproportionately Black, Indigenous and low income.”

Burning methane also creates CO2, which is less harmful but more permanent than methane.

Biochar, a type of charcoal that is produced by heating wood to an extremely high temperature, is another approach that is replicable at smaller scales. The substance has been around since 6,000 BCE, when it started to be used as a soil amendment. Adding it to stored liquid manure can reduce greenhouse gasses as well.

Shelburne Farms, a nonprofit farm in Shelburne, Vt., has begun testing the impact of biochar. Vermont requires farmers to store manure from November through April, so they have to put it in lagoons. When biochar is spread over these lagoons, it absorbs the off-gassed nitrogen.

“[Biochar] also reduces odor from lagoons, which is really important for small- to mid-sized dairy farms that need to have good relationships with their neighbors,” Jones said.

This lower-tech solution may improve soil health, but there needs to be more testing around it to prove the seemingly significant advantage of biochar over other greenhouse gas emission techniques, Jones said.

A DECARBONIZED CHEESE INDUSTRY. Some positive changes in global emissions do come from better grazing systems, but “it’s a small piece of a big pie,” said Jones. There currently is not enough land in the world to support the current number of livestock through grazing systems.

Jones urged larger farms to quell growth, slowing down excess milk production, much like the Comté PDO (protected designation of origin). In France, the Comté Association practices a kind of “cheese socialism” that acknowledges the finite resources of the region, preserving culture and jobs.

Amidst climate change, there is hope for the future of cheese. The “degrowth” movement aims to use less of the Earth’s resources and put economic wellbeing ahead of profit. A Yale study showed that 72% of Americans believe climate change is happening, and 63% say they feel a personal sense of responsibility to help reduce global warming.

The cheese industry can take steps toward carbon neutrality, knowing that “every fraction of a degree makes a difference, so everything you do is important for reducing climate change,” Jones said. She also explained that planting trees will not cancel out current levels of greenhouse gas production, so sequestration efforts must be paired with mitigation efforts to be effective. The industry requires systemic changes, she said, because while individual solutions are helpful, there is a cap to their effectiveness. All of these concerted efforts can build resilience, allow for adaptation and mitigate impact.

Information for this article was taken from a talk, “Cheese & Climate Change: Reimagining American Dairy to Mitigate Impacts, Build Resilience, and Pursue Real Solutions,” at the American Cheese Society conference in July 2024.