Growing the Supply and Market for Climate-Smart Grass-Fed Organic Dairy via Maple Hill Creamery

This project will expand climate-smart markets for dairy producers and enable a network of partners and producers to implement climate-smart practices by incentivizing implementation and providing training support. This will lead to greater environmental practices and enhanced viability for farms that implement them.

The project plans to provide participants incentives for Avoided Conversion, Pasture Scoring, Training and Voluntary participation. Marketing plans include updated branding materials like packaging, advertising, social media and a website.

The project plans to utilize a combination of core tools: COMET, a Pasture Scorecard, on-farm soil sampling, and third-party soil health measurements. The monitoring, measurement, and reporting is planned to be led by a technical expert with third-party verification and soil is planned to be sampled utilizing the soil sampling framework developed by partners.

The project plans to update all branding materials, including the website, packaging, advertising, and social media to draw attention to climate-smart farming efforts and CO2 impacts to draw and expand upon consumer desire to support Climate-Smart grass-fed organic products – milk for yogurt, butter, and kefir. The project provides a number of incentives, including Avoided Conversion Incentive payments, Voluntary Incentive payments, Pasture Scoring incentives and Training incentives.

In order for a producer to be considered for our program you need to be (or be willing to transition to) an Organic Plus Trust (OPT) certified grass-fed organic dairy producer. Current target geography is farms in Upstate NY, but may be expanded if there is enough interest.