The Milk Sustainability Center (MSC) in which John Deere participates, is expanding. It is now fully operational and available to dairy farmers in Europe and North America. The MSC welcomes dsm-firmenich as the next strategic partner.
Designed to enhance the efficiency and sustainability of dairy farming operations, the MSC offers a unique solution by integrating data on crop, animal and feeding performance into one unified platform.
Developed through a joint effort initiated between John Deere and DeLaval in September 2023, the MSC empowers farmers to optimize their operations, reduce environmental impact and become more profitable.
John Deere partners in the MSC, since the company has recognized the importance of the dairy cow itself as the core asset on each dairy operation. Mechanization is only to a limited extent part of the operation. All surrounding factors are as important, such as fodder crop choice and treatment, weather conditions, harvesting performance, handling and storage, precise feeding and herd management.
Sixty percent of all expenses on a dairy farm are feed related. As a result, the importance of properly managing the herd is eminent to keep these expenses under control. And that’s why the availability of data is so important. Also that’s where John Deere comes into place as one of the partners to collecting and processing data in the fodder harvesting process and work together with partners in this field.
Dairy farmers can use the Milk Sustainability Center to monitor nutrient use efficiency (NUE) and carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) across their farm, herd, and fields. It provides insights to help farmers manage nutrient utilization effectively and reduce the need for manual data input. Today, dairy farmers can choose to create automized data flow to MSC from 30 herd-, milking- and feeding software. Farmers can also invite their consultants, dealers, veterinarians and other partners to access the platform.
Regional expansion
The Milk Sustainability Center is designed to serve dairy farmers, independent of their farm machinery brands, feeding technology, milking equipment brands, or herd management software. It is now fully available in 13 countries across North America and Europe (see list below). Farmers can easily subscribe free of charge at the website of MFC.
The innovative digital ecosystem, addresses evolving sustainability standards and the growing demands for sustainable practices in dairy farming.
Alexander Berges, Production System Manager at John Deere says, “We’re already working on future additions like benchmarking and recommendations functionality. This will further help farmers being more profitable while improving their sustainability.”
New strategic partner
Among the current strategic partners Dinamica Generale, and Data Dairy Warehouse, now also dsm-firmenich joins. It’s “Sustell” software is a lifecycle assessment (LCA) solution that helps the agricultural industry measure and improve sustainability performance. This partnership will allow primary data to flow from MSC to the Sustell software, if the farmer agrees. This will further enhance MSC functionality with extra Sustell data sources and certified carbon footprint calculations, supporting the customers to drive profitable environmental improvements.
Dr. David Nickell, Vice President of Sustainability and Business Solutions at dsm-firmenich Animal Nutrition & Health, commented: “The partnership between the Milk Sustainability Center and dsm-firmenich makes environmental impact assessment scalable and easier to implement. This will enable value chain partners to regularly track sustainability performance and to understand where and how to make profitable improvements with credible and transparent data and insights.”
Lars Bergmann, Executive Vice President of Digital Service at DeLaval, explains: “We aim to unify the industry to support dairy farmers improving their sustainability footprint. Partnerships like this will provide farmers with integrated tools that simplify automatic data flow, and enhance herd and field performance, which will support long-term sustainability goals. Processors and consumer goods companies will benefit from a more transparent supply chain, strengthened by verifiable sustainability credentials.”
The Milk Sustainability Center welcomes partners to join its mission to provide farmers with the comprehensive data and insights needed for a holistic view of the efficiency and sustainability in their dairy operations.
