Sustainable Production

Improving and Protecting Water, Air and Soil Quality

California’s dairy farmers are currently pursuing multi-benefit projects to increase water quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By utilizing cutting-edge on farm management practices, our members are already helping achieve some of the highest water quality standards, which is especially important in disadvantaged communities who are most impacted by contaminated supplies yet lack the resources to adequately respond.

Through innovative and feasible healthy soil management practices, including regenerative soil production via compost, the industry is helping promote a circular agricultural economy in California.

DWR LandFlex Program

In partnership with the Department of Water Resources (DWR), California’s dairy industry has implemented the groundbreaking LandFlex Program, which includes temporarily fallowing fields for one year and permanently eliminating overdraft groundwater pumping on specified lands, including dairies, leaving more groundwater available for drinking water wells. This program is already delivering significant and measurable results, especially for vulnerable populations, including:

Providing immediate relief to Central Valley communities that rely on groundwater for their drinking water needs by offering incentives to nearby growers to temporarily fallow their enrolled land for one year, helping to replenish severely depleted wells. This approach advances sustainable groundwater management and promotes early compliance with Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
Protecting critical infrastructure from the impacts of land subsidence.
Supporting the long-term productivity of working lands by incentivizing growers to adopt more sustainable farming practices, promoting agricultural viability, enhancing ecological health, and delivering broader benefits to surrounding communities.

Read the recently released LandFlex Report.

Sustainability in Practice

tricolored blackbired

For a decade California Dairy Farmers have worked with Audubon California and partners to delay harvests where the birds nest, solving what was once the biggest threat to the species.

learn more

Tricolored Blackbirds Once Faced Extinction—Here’s What’s Behind Their Exciting Comeback

Audubon and Partners Protected 155,000 Tricolored Blackbirds in 2022

Dairies Help Save Tricolored Blackbirds

Unite With Us

Join us in preserving California’s way of life by supporting the future of the dairy industry and our communities. We are the generations of dairy farming families, small business owners, labor representatives and lifelong California residents.