2021 DSF Members Meeting

The Annual DSF Members meeting was held virtually on 30 November 2021 with over 120 delegates from 22 countries. The packed 3-hour session focused on Enhancing member interaction for effective progress. The plenary session featured an update on Pathways to Dairy Net Zero by Kevin Burkum of Global Dairy Platform and Hayden Montgomery of the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural GHG Emissions, and DSF Development Director, Brian Lindsay, presented an update of DSF activities which included the results of the DSF 2020 Reporting data.

Five different fantastic breakout sessions provided an interactive opportunity and were introduced by Professor Jude Capper of Harper Adams University (UK).  Members attended sessions where DSF Members presented real life examples how they are tackling specific sustainability challenges in different geographies. Topics covered, included Biodiversity, Soils, Animal Care, Waste and Water.

The keynote speaker, Professor David Hughes of Imperial College London (UK), provided valuable insights based on his extensive global experience and research regarding communicating the impact of sustainability progress.

Members who missed the meeting can view a recording of the plenary session in English on the DSF Members Extranet.  Based on such positive feedback, the DSF together with the collaborating members is running the breakout sessions again as webinars in the first half of 2022 to enable members to ‘experience’ all five topic areas should they wish.

Animal Care, the first of these, saw attendees treated to a fascinating presentation from Cees Jan Hollander, Global Farming Expertise Manager for Danone, who provided a detailed insight into their exciting animal welfare programme.  Danone’s objective is to standardise animal welfare across their global supply base through tools, action plans and farmer incentives.  Danone’s multi-country approach is working with diverse herd sizes ranging from 3 to 20,000 cows in a range of production systems.  The tool is able to generate a customised action plan for every farm, regardless of size or system typology.  The Webinar, facilitated by Helen Dornom, DSF Member from Dairy Australia, delved deeper into the assessment tool and future planned updates.  Detail on how Danone engages farmers and encourages them to strive for continuous progress in a number of ways was also discussed with those attending including demonstrating the interrelationships between animal health care and fertility, carbon footprint and profitability. A recording of the Animal Care webinar is available to DSF members along with a copy of the slides.

We will be sharing dates of the other forthcoming webinars with members shortly.