Dairy Farming: Environmental Impact, Ethics, and Industry Outlook How much does dairy farming contribute to global warming? Dairy farming is the practice of raising and breeding livestock to produce milk for human consumption. While the industry isn't going away any time soon, plant-based milk alternatives such as soy, almond, and oat milk have created a competitive market, driving down the rate of cow’s milk consumption in recent years. Given the dairy industry's tremendous land and water use and the substantial amount of methane produced from cows, this might be considered a gradual environmental win. How environmentally taxing is dairy farming? Here, we review the impacts and ethics of this sector of agriculture, the competition between small and large dairy farms, and the future of the industry. Processes of Dairy Farming Dairy farmers manage every aspect of a cow’s life—from what they eat and how much space they’re allotted to how much time cows spend with their offspring
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