Organic Valley Pilot Program Uses Satellite Imagery

Organic Valley announced the launch of a new pilot program that uses satellite photography to measure pasture health of their dairy farms. The idea is to help give farmers real-time feedback each week to help with dairy nutrition, improve pastures, and help the environment.

Organic Valley farmers separate their pastures into sections called paddocks and then move the herd between the different sections to keep up with healthy land growth. Moving the cattle between paddocks is called “intensive rotational grazing,” which is very popular within regenerative farming systems.

“Rotational grazing requires farmers to measure the forage in each paddock on a regular basis, a manual and time-intensive practice,” said Wade Miller, Organic Valley senior director of farm resources. “Satellite photos measure the forage in each paddock remotely, greatly easing the farmer’s labor and time burden. Based on university trials, we expect our farmers will be able to capture at least a 20% increase in pasture utilization through the use of this technology.”

According to Organic Valley, their cows spend more time grazing outside than 95% of all dairy cows in the United States. The company stated that some of the benefits of this practice are improved pasture health, more biodiversity, better water quality, and resource conservation. Miller said that the pilot program technology will be tested on farms throughout the United States in 2021 and will be made available to Organic Valley farms in 2022.