Fischer Farms Achieves 50% Carbon Neutrality: A Milestone in Sustainable Farming

A scientific research team from Geospherics in Bloomington, Indiana has led an effort to analyze the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Fischer Farms Ultimate Beef Research Project.

The effort brought in soil expert, Dr. Craig Rasmussen of the University of Arizona, Dr. Fu Zhao of Purdue University, Kevin Ellet and Dr. Kate Mortensen of Geospherics. Natural Resource Conservation Service regional soil experts were also involved to provide local soil structure knowledge.

Their conclusion is that with the current practices at Fischer Farms, the overall carbon footprint is 50% of the national average!!

Below is a detailed graph displaying the United States national average for greenhouse gas 

emissions vs the Fischer Farms Ultimate Beef greenhouse gas emissions as tested on the

farm over a period of 1 year.

LCA: From Cradle to Gate

The initial LCA focus was on-farm activities. Following the supply chain from processing to the customer will be included in the next full scope analysis.

The graphic below displays how carbon and greenhouse gasses are both created and emitted.

The LCA identified 3 key areas to focus on for carbon footprint reduction:

• Carbon Sequestration
• Enteric Methane Emissions (methane released during the digestive process of animals)
• Nitrogen Fertilizer Use

Carbon Sequestration

A team of scientists analyzed our annual crop rotation of annual ryegrass + corn silage, annual ryegrass + forage sorghum that we developed with the help of Purdue University and the University of Kentucky. We have the rare opportunity for researchers to examine soils that have been in this rotation for 2, 5, 10 and 15 years. This gave the researchers from University of Arizona, Purdue University and a local research firm that focuses on carbon capture to determine we have increased carbon/organic matter in the topsoil, subsoil and to break up the fragipan (the subsurface soil that restricts water flow and root penetration). Through isotope analysis they can determine the source of the carbon as C3 or C4 (the 2 different pathways in which plants convert carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into organic compounds) and its age. This analysis determined that the annual ryegrass was responsible for carbon increasing at all depths. This required 98 – 48” core samples. This work is expected to be peer-reviewed and published in 2025. This research supports the University of Kentucky work and clearly establishes annual ryegrass, with its 4,000 lbs of roots per acre, as a key crop in restoring organic matter on farms. We have fields that have increased organic matter from 2% to over 5% (2% at the beginning of the Ultimate Beef Research Project to 5% after 1 year of testing).

Enteric Methane Emissions

The team from Geospherics and project lead, Dave Fischer, have spent years reviewing existing research on methane emissions from cattle. We also attended the methane emissions conference at UC Davis and have gotten input from their research team.  Fischer Farms has been feeding brown kelp, probiotics and garlic to reduce methane emissions as these have shown to have great success in emission reduction.

To date, some key findings of the Research Team are:

• 95% of methane emissions in the production of beef cattle are created by the rumen and are belched out the cattle’s mouth. The rumen has specific bacteria called methanogens that produce methane as they break down forages.
• More methane is produced on rougher forages. Cows producing calves on pasture are the main contributors and grass finished beef produces far more methane than grain finished or low forage diets.
• Additives in the feed, pasture, and mineral mix can have a significant reduction in methane production.

Red Seaweed – 80%

Brown Kelp – 10-25%

Garlic, Probiotics - ~10%

Fenugreek ~ testing in progress

Project plans for 2025 include establishing an experiment on Fischer Farms to test these treatments by capturing the methane in their feeding barns.  This will allow large scale, 150 cattle per test, experiments to confirm university research on small animal groups at universities.

Nitrogen Fertilizer

Preliminary life cycle analysis research conducted by the Project Team determined that one of the largest opportunities to reduce the carbon footprint of the production system was through the reduction of nitrogen fertilizer usage. Nitrogen requires a large amount of natural gas to produce and has a large greenhouse gas footprint before reaching the farm gate. It also gets into our water systems. Through this grant we were able to hire an Agronomist to help conduct field trials on various nitrogen reducing techniques. These include over 10 biological products, intercropping legumes into corn and forage sorghum, and trialing new varieties developed to greatly reduce nitrogen requirements. The grant paid for the Agronomist and Fischer Farms paid for all the remaining costs.

With our existing experience and new techniques, we were able to reduce our nitrogen use on corn. In a key field trial, we used 135 pounds of nitrogen to produce 260 bushels of corn per acre (normally more than 300 pounds) even after following a ryegrass silage harvest. Ryegrass is known to scavenge all the nitrogen into the plant (reducing runoff).

We also planted a test field of corn in 30” rows with cowpeas in between via splitter rows. This crop performed very well and was harvested using our silage harvester. The cowpeas also provided all the nitrogen needed on the following ryegrass mix crop. This will be trialed on more acres in 2025. This practice has exciting potential to reduce fertilizer while improving yields on many beef and dairy farms.

In 2024, we worked with Green Cover Seeds to create an 8-way summer annual mix that performed extremely well with only a small amount (30 pounds) of nitrogen fertilizer. This mix had enough legumes creating nitrogen to eliminate the need for fall nitrogen application on the ryegrass mix planted in September/October. Fischer Farms paid for the seed and all trial costs. The great results of this crop seem to have benefited from high level of mycorrhiza fungi which kept the crop with moisture during 3-month long drought periods. In 2024, we planted 83 acres of this mix and plan to have over 200 acres in 2025. We will also be conducting trials of harvesting this crop as silage for winter feeding. We are also going to test feeding this silage to finishing calves for the last 60 days, as research by Michigan State University shows this will greatly improve the nutrition profile to nearly match grass finished with low Omega 3:6 ratio (learn more about why many feel this is important here). We will monitor the rate of gain, meat quality, and costs, then publish our results. This mix could be a replacement for corn silage on beef and dairy farms with a large reduction in fertilizer and costs.

Bale grazing is another recently trialed practice. The University of Kentucky is a leader in our area and has worked with farmers in Kentucky on adopting this practice. We implemented this on over 300 acres through the winter of 2023-24 and because of the better urine and manure distribution we did not need to fertilize these pastures in 2024. We are analyzing best practices to determine how many bales per acre, frequency of rotation, bale size, when to unroll bales, etc. This information will be shared with our network of farmers and through grazing organizations.

We believe with these practices we will reduce nitrogen use by over 50% across our farm. Our experiences and education gained throughout the Ultimate Beef Research Project will be shared with other farmers along with ways they can utilize incentives. Our goal is to completely eliminate nitrogen use by the end of the project in 2028.