Summary
Greener Dairy Farms TM is a dairy efficiency contract solution introduced by Carbery Group (a global leader in food ingredients, flavours and cheese) and Teagasc (state body which provides research, advisory and training to the agricultural and food sector in Ireland) to measure, monitor and optimise resource allocation and best practice in environmental sustainability on the dairy farm. The programme was set up in 2012, starting with 12 dairy farmers and now extends to 62 dairy farmers, all of whom are members of the cooperatives that own Carbery. Each farm has been assessed for carbon footprint, water and energy usage and soil fertility and a baseline created. Based on this assessment, various environmental efficiency measures have been introduced to improve performance and achieve financial savings. The programme was based on a previous European project called the Dairyman Project, where 120 dairy farmers in 10 regions of North West Europe which focused on farm resource efficiencies and management. Carbery was the first to start such an endeavour in Ireland. While all the farms are not adjacent to each other, they are all located within a relatively small territorial area.
Objectives
The overall purpose of the project is to raise the awareness of sustainable dairy production methods among Carbery suppliers and to highlight areas where gains in terms of productivity could be made by monitoring farms within the catchment. The specific objectives are:
- To develop a baseline footprint for carbon, energy and water usage and soil fertility and to carry out an initial biodiversity assessment;
- To establish where efficiencies could be made by devising a management plan with the farmer,
- To disseminate the learnings.
Public Goods
Problem description
Carbery Greener Dairy FarmsTM was initiated by the sustainability department of Carbery Group Ltd in 2012. There was recognition that environmental pressures were going to increase in conjunction with the planned growth in herd sizes in response to the removal of the EU milk quota in 2015. The sustainability team recognised that there was a need to balance this growth with on-farm sustainability measures. In conjunction with Teagasc (the state body for research, advisory and training services to the agricultural and food sector), the programme was developed. While based on the Dairyman Project in Europe, which focused on strengthening rural communities by improving farm resource management in a profitable way, Carbery was the first to initiate such a project in the dairy sector in Ireland.
