On this week’s AnimalAgCast, Lizzy Schultz spoke with Peter Gallo, a third-generation farmer and cheesemaker at Joseph Gallo Farms, a dairy farm in the San Joaquin Valley of California. The operation has been a pioneer in sustainable farming practices and recently made headlines following the decision to install a new 2 megawatt (MW) solar array to supply renewable energy on-site.
The system is the largest ever installed on a private dairy farm: it utilizes 7,840 solar panels on 8 acres to provide on-site renewable energy, significantly reducing the operation’s need for electricity from the local utility and lowering the operation’s CO2 emissions by an estimated 27,500 metric tons of over the next 20 years.
Gallo’s operation also utilizes one of the largest and longest-running methane digesters in California to power the biogas engines that run their cheese factory.
Listen to this week’s AnimalAgCas here: AnimalAgCast with Peter Gallo, Joseph Farms