Carbon-neutral milk: Living into sustainable dairy
Amy Tolhurst and her family work every day to bring the concept of sustainability to life on their
Quebec dairy farm.
Tolhurst and her husband Ken operate Tolhurst Farms, with a 120-cow milking herd and about
350 acres of crops.
“I’ve never met anybody in farming that doesn’t want to do their best,” says Tolhurst.
For their best, Tolhurst Farms consciously set their sights on three key aspects of their farm
business to ensure a sustainable and inclusive future – a proactive approach to environmental
sustainability, a family-oriented atmosphere and a whole-farm view.
The decarbonization journey
Driven in part by the Dairy Farmers of Canada’s goals to help the sector reach net zero by
2050, Tolhurst Farms signed up to be part of a Living Lab research project, an Agriculture and
Agri-Food Canada initiative intended to adopt sustainable agricultural solutions.
Their farm provided an ideal setting to work with researchers as they operate their dairy farm
near a watercourse., they have succession plan in place and they have a good installation for
gathering data.
Tolhust met with several researchers prior to the studies beginning and was anxious for their
work to start so she could learn from them. The researchers identified two projects of focus –
manure management and barn air quality.
Without enough land to spread the manure produced by their herd, the Tolhusts export their
manure and are looking for new options. And the air quality project is particularly close to
Tolhurst’s heart.
“I’m also a nurse, and my father and father-in-law had farmer’s lung so working on air quality
and ventilation carries pretty big significance for me,” she says. “I want to be sure everyone
stays as healthy as possible.”
Tolhurst welcomes the feedback from researchers as the projects continue. Insight will go
towards long-term improvements on the farm.
“I will use these results to motivate our team to keep up the good work and continue to work
towards good habits and thoughtful decisions,” she says.
Still, changing lifelong habits takes time, especially when working in an industry like agriculture,
built on stability and routine. But the time for considering change is over, Tolhust says, and it’s
time to implement sustainable agricultural solutions that the Living Labs research is working on.
“Our world is in a situation of environmental crisis,” she says. “Everyone lives in this world. Is
the dairy community the sole contributor? Absolutely not. Farming and feeding our nation are
the grass roots of our country.
“Making thoughtful choices enables us to be the example for those in our sector and in other
industries. Illustrating the benefits/rewards of good choices sets up our world for success.”
Focus on family and health
Like many operations, Tolhurst Farms rely on family and temporary foreign workers to run their
farm day to day. Finding the best mix of family and workers is important to Tolhurst, and they
have been fortunate to have Guatemalan workers from the same family, returning to work with
them for many years.
“We want to make sure everyone gets along and also install the importance of taking time off,”
she says. That means modelling the behavior themselves to show the benefits of a good
work/life balance.
Tolhurst extended that health-first approach into the community by starting a local health co-op
to support local healthcare services.
“We have a focus to accommodate people in agriculture because they often find it difficult to find
time to manage their health or prioritize their health,” Tolhurst says.
Take the long view
The third key focus area for Tolhurst is the bigger holistic view of their farm operation from
succession to the work with researchers to improve on best practice for long-term sustainability.
“We consider our whole family to be part of the farm, even if they aren’t all employees,” Amy
says. “And one of the values we have here is guardianship or stewardship of the land – and we
all have a passion for the land.”
For every aspect of their farm, Tolhurst and knows incremental changes are they way to go.
“Changes in degrees often stick better than massive change, and we can chip away at this if we
all work at it together.”
For the last 2 years we have been among the 5 finalists for our regions for the Agropur milk quality award.
Information slideshow:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K1lFH6n0CoLSJKqtmEV3ayXuG9J1v3RG/preview
For the last 7 years we have received the award of Very Great Distinction with the Federation of Milk Producers of Quebec.
