Building value for dairy farmers and advisors in the Farmers Assuring Responsible Management Environmental Stewardship Program

Major industry-led efforts aim at reducing the cradle-to-farmgate environmental impacts of milk production (e.g., U.S. Dairy Net Zero Initiative). Our qualitative, exploratory work sought to characterize farmer and advisor perceptions of an environmental sustainability assessment program [FARM ES Version 2] in the Upper Midwest. We aimed to 1) explore the ways participants valued environmental stewardship (ES) assessments, 2) describe feasible on-farm improvement strategies identified regionally, and 3) characterize how participants assigned responsibility for enacting selected improvement strategies. In Fall 2023, we held a series of 2 to 3 focus groups for each of 5 regions (n = 14 meetings total) including farmers (n = 24), advisors (n = 20), and processor representatives (n = 1). Facilitators guided participants through semi-structured prompts to generate qualitative data including meeting transcriptions, consensus lists, and consensus diagrams. First, we used a deductive-inductive process to analyze meeting transcriptions and identify themes related to the value of environmental stewardship assessments. Results suggested that participants valued simplicity, ease of data entry, availability of regional comparisons, and the ability to enumerate a baseline for environmental performance. Conversely, participants reported skepticism about accuracy and fairness and the usefulness of assessments as decision-support tools. Second, we examined consensus documents to generate a list of feasible strategies for on-farm improvement. Participants identified immediately feasible management strategies including cover cropping, genetic improvement, no-/minimum-tillage, precision nutrient management, herd/facility management technologies, monensin supplementation, and the conversion of fossil fuel to electric motors. Finally, we inspected collaborative actor-network diagrams generated with participants, which illustrated that participants envisioned implementation as complex and (in some instances) contingent on cooperation across supply chains and allied industries. Overall, our findings suggested that dairy farms need both accessible entry points into ES management and advanced technical and social support for implementing changes.