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Three takeaways from global action on agriculture and climate

By Jennifer Chow / Bio / Published: December 10, 2025

As we come to the end of another record-breaking year for extreme weather, we can see the effects on our plates. Climate change is on the table for both producers and consumers, and leaders must continue to drive global visions forward with local solutions, connecting how critical producers and consumers are to each other.

As the global climate conference COP30 concluded this year, Brazil had the daunting task of pursuing the unity and multilateralism that United Nations processes call for in the name of people and the planet. But what was clear from COP30 is that the agrifood systems community has been successful in helping climate leaders understand that the critical impact of agriculture and food on climate change (and vice versa) requires full-scale engagement.

We can build that deep engagement by creating win-win solutions, supporting adaptation as a means to mitigation and connecting each piece — from behavior change to science and innovation to financial incentives — for a genuine ecosystem approach.

Here are three takeaways to close out 2025:

Posted in Agriculture / Also tagged ag methane, climate change, climate resilience, COP, COP30, farmers, food security, methane, resilience | Comments are closed

From feed formulation to fermentation: Can dairy cow nutrition models predict enteric methane emissions?

By Mallory Honan / Bio / Published: October 31, 2025

By Mallory Honan, Scientist, Livestock Methane; Jack Killcoyne, Senior Research Analyst, Global Livestock Methane; Peri Rosenstein, Senior Scientist, Livestock Systems

A dairy cow’s diet is an integral part of her well-being and productivity; it’s also a critical opportunity for reducing methane emissions. Similar to humans, what cows eat impacts their ability to live healthy, productive lives. Therefore, a major priority for farmers and nutritionists is formulating a diet that satisfies their cows’ dietary requirements.

Unlike humans, though, cows are ruminants — animals that have a compartmentalized digestive organ (three pre-stomachs and one true stomach) — and they digest food very differently. The largest component of their pre-stomach and main site of digestion is aptly named the rumen. This chamber acts as a fermentation vat, with microbes breaking down nutrients from feed. The cow then burps out methane produced as a byproduct via these microbial digestive processes, also known as enteric fermentation.

Posted in Agriculture / Also tagged ag methane, agricultural climate solutions, agricultural methane, agriculture methane, climate change and agriculture, farmers, farming, food production, livestock methane | Comments are closed

Why lowering livestock methane emissions will help slow climate change and benefit farmers

By John Tauzel / Published: September 18, 2025

Farmers and ranchers around the world face increased heatwaves, droughts and heavy rainfall, making it harder to grow livestock and crops. This means less financial security for farm families and, globally, bigger threats to people’s access to nutrition.

Posted in Agriculture / Also tagged ag methane, agriculture methane, climate change, climate resilience, enteric methane, farmers, farming, farms, food production, food security, livestock methane, methane emissions | Comments are closed

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 / Also tagged animal health, climate change, climate resilience, dairy, extreme heat, farmers, heat stress, resilience, sustainable agriculture | 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 / Also tagged ag methane, climate change, dairy, dairy methane, European Union, farmers, Ireland, livestock methane, methane, sustainability | 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 / Also tagged climate change, climate-smart agriculture, enteric methane, methane, methane emissions, research | Comments are closed

Celebrating the groundbreaking of a natural infrastructure project to combat flooding in North Carolina

By Michelle Lovejoy / Published: March 28, 2025

Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) joined North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) at a groundbreaking event today to celebrate the progress of a new and significant natural infrastructure pilot project.

The Stoney Creek pilot project is an innovative approach to utilizing natural infrastructure and nature’s processes to address flood risk in the City of Goldsboro and in the greater area of Wayne County, North Carolina. Moreover, it is a major step forward in advancing community flood resilience across the entire state.

Posted in Coasts and Watersheds / Also tagged flood resilience, flooding, hurricane, resilience | 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.

Posted in Agriculture, Food / Also tagged agricultural methane, 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

Posted in Agriculture, Food / Also tagged climate resilience, farm finance, farmers, farming, farms, food, food production, food security, sustainability | Comments are closed

Four takeaways from a year of global action on food, agriculture and climate

By Jennifer Chow / Bio / Published: December 16, 2024

Global leaders increasingly recognize that agriculture and food systems must be part of solutions to the climate crisis. From the first Food Systems Pavilion at a UN climate conference in 2022, to 160 countries recognizing food and agriculture as a climate imperative in 2023, food advocates came into the 2024 UN climate conference, COP29, with wind in our sails. We made progress, but the world needs to do more — and quickly.

As we close out the year and look ahead to COP30 in late 2025, significantly more work remains to ensure farmers, fishers and ranchers can feed a growing population and lower climate pollution from food systems.

Here are four reflections from EDF and our partners about the progress made this year and the urgent work that remains to make farms and food systems more resilient, sustainable and equitable.

Posted in Agriculture, Food / Also tagged Climate, COP29, food | Read 1 Response