Students, dairy team up for environment
Cows make milk, no doubt.
But they also produce a fair share of greenhouse gasses. Specifically cow waste, called slurry, generates methane.
And in today's world, keeping sustainability in check is on a global priority list.
Recognizing a call for environmentally friendly measures not only from its wholesalers and customers but its own sense of stewardship, Marburger Farm Dairy teamed up with graduate students from Chatham University's Faulk School of Sustainability & Environment.
For the second consecutive year, a student team reassessed the dairy's sustainability survey and reports and then produced recommendations.
The reports, which detail key performance indicators, are, in part, a requirement of some of the dairy's wholesale customers. In years past, Corporate Sales Manager John Barkley said, a couple phone calls met the requirement.But now the students thoroughly review questionnaires sent to all of the 70-plus Western Pennsylvania farms that are part of Marburger's product supply chain.The students worked with dairy officials from January, when Marburger delivered milk to their Shadyside classroom, to April when the students gave a formal written and oral presentation of their findings.To increase accuracy, students first reworded the previously used questions from technical scientific jargon to language common to the industry.
“As an example, in the past, the farmers were asked, 'Are you practicing safe methane emissions?” Barkley said. “Now they're asked, 'Are you putting a lid on your slurry tank?'”The questions focus on environmental issues like forestry, water pollution and animal welfare.Marburger's Kelsey Walko, corporate sales assistant, escorted the students to five of the farms in the survey. Walko said she wanted the students to see the barns and milking machines and talk with the farmers.“I think it was really eye-opening to the students. It's not just you go to the store and pick up a gallon of milk,” Barkley said. “They go and look the farmer right in the eye, knowing he's making a living doing this and the challenges he's facing … It became more than an assignment to them.”Walko, as well as the students' professor Sandra Taylor, said the farm visits changed not only the questions asked but the students themselves.
“The students were so interested in listening to the farmers and helping them find easy solutions,” Walko said. “They were completely engaged.”Some of the classes' 18 students had never been on a farm, let alone a dairy farm before, Taylor said.“We study sustainability reports and corporate responsibility all year long,” said Taylor, who worked in the industry before becoming a professor. “It's one thing for them to hear me lecture in a classroom. It's another to see what happens at a real dairy farm. They got to see the slurry. The survey came to life for them.”The student-improved surveys had a 100 percent participation rate by the farmers. Students interpreted the data and made goal-setting recommendations, Taylor said.
“This gives us a realistic set of standards for our farms. We're on a path to becoming more sustainable,” Barkley said.The dairy incorporated the information into the reports required by their customers.Walko said it's not just the big corporations seeking corporate responsibility from the products they buy, it's all customers including schools, nursing homes and private people who still get milk delivered to their door.“Anybody who drinks milk,” Barkley said. “And there's a demand from us personally to make sure we are doing the best we can.”Both the school and dairy say they hope to continue the relationship.“This is sort of a match made in heaven,” Barkley said. “We needed the information, and the students needed the experience.”
