In this issue...

Five new indicators launched at the members' meeting, we welcome three new Governors and the publication of the 2016-17 Annual Review. Plus much more...

The recently published annual review not only contains updates on activity and membership, but also looks at how the DSF Global Criteria and their Strategic Intents represent the high-level goals for the dairy value chain.

These goals set out the direction for the global dairy sector. DSF members, operating at the Strategic, Operational and Tactical levels, can now develop focused programs to deliver against these goals in an aligned way.

Through this alignment, DSF members provide the quantification of continuous improvement in support of the DSF goals. The aggregate performance of the sector is now being tracked by the Global indicator metrics (of which seven of the 11 are already launched).

The full Annual Review can be downloaded HERE.

The DSF members meeting on October 29, saw the launch of five new indicator metrics, building on the two launched in 2016.  With these seven completed, the sector is now able to move from a basis of talking about what it is going to do, to a clear demonstration of the sustainability progress at an aggregate level. This is a substantial step forward!

Many thanks to Dr Marty Matlock and his team at the University of Arkansas for guiding us through this process. You can read more HERE.

To learn more about the context of the global indicator metrics work, you may wish to watch the video clip HERE.

The second DSF members meeting was held in Belfast on 29th October 2017.

Over 50 members from 29 organizations and 15 different countries shared their sustainability efforts and challenges in delivering targeted continuous improvement programs under the DSF commitments.

Importantly the meeting was designed in such a way that all members could share how they had dealt with the challenges in different geographies and markets.

There were presentations from members on:

• Establishing and undertaking a materiality analysis
• Forming and maintaining multi-stakeholder management groups
• Insights on aggregation from two the DSF’s five Aggregators, the US and Australia, were also provided

The day focused on membership interaction with members who had the opportunity to network with colleagues in a full day’s activities culminating with the members having the opportunity to challenge members of both the DSF Governance and also the multi-stakeholder Advisory Group.

The DSF continues to support members in their sustainability journeys and has just published a new document ‘Theory of Change – mapping the journey’.

Commissioned by the DSF and produced in conjunction with ISEAL and Nestlé, the document looks at the Theory of Change concept and how it is applied in practice in support of members’ sustainability programs.

A Theory of Change is a process that helps a business articulate what long-term sustainability impact or change it is hoping to achieve and how it intends to bring about that change through a managed process.

In addition to the theory, the publication also features a valuable case study from Nestlé, an Implementing Member of the Dairy Sustainability Framework. Nestlé recognized that the Theory of Change process required a different approach to addressing their material sustainability issues.

We encourage DSF members to download their copy which can be found on the DSF (members) EXTRANET – TODAY!

We are pleased to report that the DSF now has a full complement of Governors under the current DSF strategy. Over the last four months the DSF has been working with the World Farmers Organisation in identifying who their new Governor representative would be (office holder elections were needed) and with Dairy Asia to whom we have two Governor seats allocated.

We are delighted to welcome:

Daniel Pelegrina – World Farmers Organisation (Argentina)

Thanawat Tiensen – Dairy Asia (Thailand)

Zhao Wei - Dairy Asia (China)

Dairy Asia recently held a members’ meeting in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar, in conjunction with the Animal Production and Health Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

Over 100 representatives from some 15 Asian countries attended this meeting helping to drive Dairy Asia towards another positive step forward.  A work program was agreed at this meeting for the forthcoming year, a key aspect of which is to develop a longer-term strategy for the delivery of tangible sustainability activity across the region.

Key actions for the forthcoming year are:

• A five year roadmap to be developed
• Individual country members (Focal Points) are charged with developing delivery roadmaps based on their national priorities
• A value proposition is to be developed for the private sector to become more engaged in Dairy Asia activities
• Working Groups on Genetics and Productivity / Profitability are challenged to develop their key objectives and deliverables in a specified time frame
• A working Group focused on ‘knowledge products and sharing’ has been formed to look at innovative ways of collecting and sharing information, focusing initially on School Milk and ‘Good practices’

Importantly the emphasis of this meeting was on what local resources could be mobilised to deliver the regional sustainability programs and how that ‘activity’ and ‘action’ could feed into the DA network via the Secretariat.

Also at the Dairy Asia meeting, delegates were invited to vote on which they felt deserved to win the very first Dairy Asia Sustainability Award! After hearing presentations from five sustainability programs in the region (narrowed down from a list of some 25 applications), this was a most challenging task as all had achieved impressive results.  

In the end there had to be one winner, the Ration Balancing Programme, presented by Dr. Rajesh Sharma, Senior Manager (Animal Nutrition) for the National Dairy Development Board, Anand, Gujarat, India.

In a previous newsletter we reported that the DSF had become a member of the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock (GASL -http://www.livestockdialogue.org).

The Global Agenda builds knowledge through thematic and regional networks. These Action Networks bring experts from the membership to lead the implementation of activities, develop outputs and draft reports, to provide evidence and information exchange.

Two new Acton Networks have been established that may be of interest to DSF colleagues.

Animal Welfare Action Network

Livestock for Social Development Action Network

Recognizing the synergies between Beef and Dairy Production, the DSF has applied and been accepted as a member of the Global Round table for Sustainable Beef.  This has not been done with the aim of passive membership. There are many opportunities for both sectors to benefit from the respective approaches being implemented to address sustainability

The DSF had from its original formation requested the involvement of the GRSB on the DSF Advisory Council. This has already been a valuable connection and as such the DSF has now taken the step to get closer to the activities of the GRSB to enhance progress and outputs of both organizations.