The Gilchrist Soil and Water Conservation District recently held their annual Stewardship Banquet where they presented the 2024 Conservation Stewardship Award. This year’s recipient was Alliance Dairies.

Alliance Dairies was established in 1990 and was the first DEP permitted dairy in North Florida. Today, it is the largest free-stall dairy in one location within the state, employing more than 140 people.

Alliance Dairy has 8698 acres enrolled in both the Dairy Manual and VAC Manual. They are a permitted dairy facility with a Groundwater Monitoring program to ensure there’s no contamination to groundwater. They use all the applicable BMP’s from both  manuals including Grid Soil Sampling, Tissue Testing, Variable Rate Nutrient Application, Soil Moisture Probes, Strip-Till and No-Till planting and now with the introduction of the Soil Warrior from Environmental Tillage Systems they will be able to Strip-Till crops while variable rate applying fertilizer in the row that is estimated to save 140,000 pounds of nitrogen per year on 2500 acres. They also have a working methane digester that uses the waste from the dairy to produce methane gas.

Their company mission is to produce quality milk and beef at a profit with happy, productive employees and contented cows while improving the environment and our community.