Milking the Plains: movement of large dairy operations into southwestern Kansas

Carnivore Management Zones and their Impact on Sheep Farming in Norway

We investigated the impact of Norway's current zonal carnivore management system for four large carnivore species on sheep farming. Sheep losses increased when the large carnivores were reintroduced, but has declined again after the introduction of the zoning management system. The total number of sheep increased outside, but declined slightly inside the management zones. The total sheep production increased, but sheep farming was still lost as a source of income for many farmers. The use of the grazing resources became more extensive. Losses decreased because sheep were removed from the open outfield pastures and many farmers gave up sheep farming. While wolves expel sheep farming from the outfield grazing areas, small herds can still be kept in fenced enclosures. Bears are in every respect incompatible with sheep farming. Farmers adjust to the seasonal and more predictable behavior of lynx and wolverine, although these species also may cause serious losses when present. The mitigating efforts are costly and lead to reduced animal welfare and lower income for the farmers, although farmers in peri-urban areas increasingly are keeping sheep as an avocation. There is a spillover effect of the zoning strategy in the sense that there is substantial loss of livestock to carnivores outside, but geographically near the management zones. The carnivore management policy used in Norway is a reasonably successful management strategy when the goal is to separate livestock from carnivores and decrease the losses, but the burdens are unequally distributed and farmers inside the management zones are at an economic disadvantage.

Spatially explicit estimation of heat stress-related impacts of climate change on the milk production of dairy cows in the United Kingdom

Dairy farming is one the most important sectors of United Kingdom (UK) agriculture. It faces major challenges due to climate change, which will have direct impacts on dairy cows as a result of heat stress. In the absence of adaptations, this could potentially lead to considerable milk loss. Using an 11-member climate projection ensemble, as well as an ensemble of 18 milk loss estimation methods, temporal changes in milk production of UK dairy cows were estimated for the 21st century at a 25 km resolution in a spatially-explicit way. While increases in UK temperatures are projected to lead to relatively low average annual milk losses, even for southern UK regions (<180 kg/cow), the ‘hottest’ 25×25 km grid cell in the hottest year in the 2090s, showed an annual milk loss exceeding 1300 kg/cow. This figure represents approximately 17% of the potential milk production of today’s average cow. Despite the potential considerable inter-annual variability of annual milk loss, as well as the large differences between the climate projections, the variety of calculation methods is likely to introduce even greater uncertainty into milk loss estimations. To address this issue, a novel, more biologically-appropriate mechanism of estimating milk loss is proposed that provides more realistic future projections. We conclude that South West England is the region most vulnerable to climate change economically, because it is characterised by a high dairy herd density and therefore potentially high heat stress-related milk loss. In the absence of mitigation measures, estimated heat stress-related annual income loss for this region by the end of this century may reach £13.4M in average years and £33.8M in extreme years.