Circularity in the dairy chain

The dairy sector by nature is a part of many circular production systems.
Resources such as land, water, air, feed (inedible for humans), fertilizer and energy are used in a resource efficient manner to produce circular products such as milk, meat and manure. It is our responsibility and in our interest to use and maintain these resources in a long-term sustainable manner so that they are available to future generations.

The dairy chain is very waste efficient and recycles naturally its resources but there is potential to improve efficiency even further at several levels in the production chain, as well as in retail and in consumer level.

How have we achieved emission improvements and reduced nutrient losses?
With the efforts of all the actors across the dairy chain, many measures to limit the emissions to air and nutrient losses to water have been implemented.

A broad spectrum of measures towards improvement:

Productivity improvements
  • Improvement in farm efficiency and better agricultural practice to increase productivity and resource efficiency and to reduce GHG emissions, for instance through grassland and crop management, improved harvesting and feed conservation practices, reduction in feed losses.
  • Improvement in animal health, welfare, breeding and milk waste reduction
  • Animal feeding solutions to reduce methane emissions from enteric fermentation
Energy production on farm
  • Renewable energy production by solar panels, wind turbines and anaerobic digestion
  • Energy efficiency measures to reduce usage of fuels and electricity.
Sustainable transport
  • Fossil-free fuel and more efficient trucks, bigger vehicles (less rides needed for delivery)
  • Logistic routes optimisation.
Manure and slurry solutions
  • Better nutrient management, application of fertilisers and manure considering rates and timing to reduce losses
  • Barn and manure storage design
  • Manure storage in covered slurry containers
  • Application techniques: underground application of solid manure, slurry injection
  • Biogas from manure to generate heat, power and vehicular fuel.
  • Slurry acidification.
Farmland carbon storage
  • Promotion of soil organic matter and soil carbon storage through efficient carbon farming practices aimed at preserving and enhancing carbon sequestration of pastureland
  • Conservation of existing EU carbon stocks in dairy grassland (one third of EU agricultural land is used for permanent grassland and meadows)
  • Hedgerow management and agroforestry
Sustainable protein sourcing including soy
  • Increased feed production on-farm
  • Reliance on roughage (soy represents only a minor source of protein to dairy cows. In EU, on average, more than 85% of the feed volume of dairy cows is roughage, and 70% of the protein input stems from this sustainable type of fodder, which is almost entirely grown on farm)
  • For the share of protein input via soy, increase in the responsibly produced soy use through sustainable schemes such as the Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS) or equivalents
  • Potential to lift by product use – i.e. cows eat what humans cannot

What is our progress so far

The European dairy sector has significantly reduced its methane emissions in the past decades1. For instance, the carbon footprint per produced unit of milk in Europe is already among the lowest in the world and the sector is fully committed to further decrease its carbon intensity and contribute to the achievement of the EU GHG emissions reduction goals. Here are our main results so far, at EU level:

From 1990
To 2020

%

Reduction in methane emission from dairy enteric fermentation

%

Reduction in GHG emissions from dairy manure management

%

Increase in milk production/cow (kg milk/cow/day)