Growing Returns

Extreme heat puts pressure on cows and farmers

By EDF Staff / Published: September 10, 2025

By Sukie Kevane, EDF Intern

Dairy and beef producers are feeling the strain of heat waves — and so are their animals. Longer, hotter summers are making it harder for cows to stay healthy and productive. Heat stress lowers milk yields, weakens cows’ immune systems and can even threaten fertility.

For farmers, the impacts go beyond animal health: heat stress reduces milk yields and fertility in cows, which translates directly into financial losses from lower production and higher management costs. Lower productivity also increases the methane intensity of any milk or meat produced.

But across the world, producers, veterinarians and nutritionists are responding with new tools and time-tested strategies to help livestock cope. These solutions matter not only for animal health, but for food security, rural livelihoods and climate resilience.

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged agriculture, animal health, climate change, climate resilience, dairy, extreme heat, farmers, heat stress, resilience, sustainable agriculture | Leave a comment

Collaboration between food companies and banks can accelerate regenerative agriculture in Europe and beyond

By Maggie Monast / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: July 15, 2025

The widespread adoption of regenerative agriculture practices in Europe could strengthen crop resilience to extreme weather and support the long-term sustainability of farms, communities and ecosystems – an urgent need as the region faces record-breaking heatwaves. Despite the benefits of adopting cover cropping, no-till, nutrient management, alternative manure management and other regenerative practices, many farmers are hindered by financial barriers, including high up-front costs and risks.

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged agricultural banks, agricultural finance, European Union, farm finance, financial resilience, food companies, regenerative agriculture | Comments are closed

Modernizing agricultural insurance to strengthen farmers’ ability to adapt

By Vincent Gauthier / Bio / Published: June 26, 2025

Last year, the U.S. faced its fourth most costly year of extreme weather, contributing to more than $20 billion in agricultural losses. As this trend of increasingly extreme weather continues, modernizing agricultural insurance in the U.S. is a crucial step toward protecting farmers’ financial stability and reducing the risks they face when transitioning to climate-resilient practices.

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged ag insurance, agricultural finance, crop insurance, farm finance, financial resilience | Comments are closed

A new normal for Irish dairy: Pioneering sustainable change for Ireland’s climate future

By Justin Zahra / Published: June 9, 2025

Ireland’s lush pastures and deep-rooted agricultural traditions have long made it a global dairy powerhouse. But with agriculture contributing nearly 38% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions — four times the EU average — there’s no escaping the uncomfortable truth: Ireland’s booming dairy sector must evolve to meet the country’s climate targets.

To respond to this pressing challenge, Environmental Defense Fund Europe (EDF Europe) and Climate KIC partnered to explore a new vision for sustainable dairy. The goal? To co-create a future-proof model that balances climate action with economic resilience in Ireland’s rural heartlands.

Below, we’ll outline a new roadmap for sustainable dairy. Read More »

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged ag methane, agriculture, climate change, dairy, dairy methane, European Union, farmers, Ireland, livestock methane, methane, sustainability | Comments are closed

Farmers need technical support to balance crop yields with climate benefits

By Doria Gordon / Bio / Published: May 19, 2025

Cornfields on Ohio farm.

Cropland, which covers roughly 13% of global land surface, is integral to producing food, slowing warming and boosting resilience. Farmers find themselves in a difficult spot: they are compelled to deliver higher yields to feed a growing human population but with a lower carbon footprint.

This complexity is underscored in a recent paper published in Nature Climate Change, which assessed how tillage, cover crops and crop residue affected both crop yields and greenhouse gas mitigation over time. This work is the first to examine the yield and mitigation impacts of common regenerative agriculture practices independently and collectively at a global scale looking out to 2050 and 2100.

Importantly, farmers can use these conservation practices to produce yields and mitigation, but they will need additional technical and financial assistance to do so. This is critical to maintaining livelihoods, food stability and supporting the climate.

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged Climate, cropland, crops, farmers, technical assistance, yields | Comments are closed

To slow climate change, we must measure livestock methane accurately

By Mallory Honan / Bio / Published: May 6, 2025

Reducing methane emissions, a climate super-pollutant, can lessen rates of warming within decades. Since livestock farming is one of the biggest emitters of that methane gas, with enteric methane from cow burps alone contributing about a third of all human-caused methane emissions each year, lowering it can have a big impact.

To reduce livestock emissions, we first have to know where we’re starting. That requires accurate and validated measurement, but measuring methane from livestock isn’t simple — how we do it matters. These are the most important considerations.

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged agriculture, climate change, climate-smart agriculture, enteric methane, methane, methane emissions, research | Comments are closed

Farmers need support to survive this economic squeeze

By Maggie Monast / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: March 27, 2025

In conversations with farmers in recent months, one word keeps coming up to describe their economic reality: “squeeze.” High farm input costs and loan interest rates are making it more expensive for farmers to grow crops. At the same time, low commodity prices mean they earn less money for the crops they grow. Farmers are caught in the middle of a bad deal with many asking whether it is even worth it to farm this year.

Farmers are facing this dilemma while also navigating additional disruptions and uncertainty. Federal funds have been frozen or canceled, putting farmers with existing contracts at risk after they’ve already invested their own money with the expectation that government funding would cover the remaining cost of farm improvements. Tariffs create another layer of price uncertainty and open the door for other countries to gain a competitive advantage in global markets. On top of this, farmers in several regions have experienced damage from extreme weather events, making their financial situation even more fraught.

Farmers are getting squeezed, and this makes it harder or even impossible for them to position their businesses for long-term success. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged agricultural finance, farm finance, financial resilience | Comments are closed

Three ways to improve soil carbon measurement

By Jocelyn Lavallee / Bio / Published: March 24, 2025

Measuring soil carbon accurately is essential for ensuring confidence in large-scale efforts to improve soil health, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support initiatives like carbon credit programs.

But determining how much organic carbon is stored in soil from decomposed plants can be a challenge, leading to a well-known problem: different soil testing labs can give different numbers for the same soil.

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged Climate, edf study, lab, measurments, science, Soil carbon | Comments are closed

Animal health is key to healthy people and planet

By Peri Rosenstein / Published: March 13, 2025

Maintaining animal health isn’t only an essential practice for livestock farming, though any farmer or rancher will agree that’s true. It’s also a way to lower the methane intensity of the meat and dairy produced by livestock and improve health and livelihoods for people, which is particularly important for smallholder farmers in low-income countries.

Livestock farming contributes more than one-third of human-caused methane emissions, a powerful super-pollutant responsible for much of the additional warming and extreme weather the world is facing. At the same time, animal agriculture both provides critical nutrition and supports the livelihoods of millions of families, benefits that are now at risk due to heatwaves, droughts and other climate impacts.

Also posted in Food / Tagged agricultural methane, agriculture, animal agriculture, farmers, food production, methane, resilience | Comments are closed

Without financing solutions, farmers have to leave money — and environmental benefits — on the table

By Guest Author / Published: March 11, 2025

This op-ed was originally published in Hoard’s Dairyman. Since its initial publication, the financial uncertainty for farmers engaging in conservation practices has grown substantially. Ongoing trade negotiations, tariffs and blocked funding for existing U.S. Department of Agriculture contracts for conservation expenses and the uncertainty of future funding for conservation programs intensify the financial challenges faced by dairy farmers.

Dairy farmers are already part of a high-risk industry — the experience shared below shows how difficult it can be to align funding opportunities with farms’ financial needs. Now, farmers are being left to absorb that risk with less support. To continue producing food for their communities and responsibly stewarding natural resources, farmers will need more flexibility from financial institutions and greater investments from stakeholders advancing sustainable agriculture.

By Alice Crothers

Also posted in Food / Tagged agriculture, climate resilience, farm finance, farmers, farming, farms, food, food production, food security, sustainability | Comments are closed