The Stewardship and Sustainability Guide for U.S. Dairy is one more tool the industry can use to assure the public dairy farmers and companies are doing the right thing. Consumers increasingly want more transparency about the food they’re eating and how it was produced.
To satisfy this growing demand, the companies that provide dairy to their customers are increasingly evaluating environmental, social and economic factors, such as carbon footprint, water use, soil health and biodiversity.
U.S. dairy farmers, processors and manufacturers have long used the latest science and technology to manage natural resources and preserve the land, air and water for future generations. Building on this, the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy led an industry-wide, collaborative effort to develop the Stewardship and Sustainability Guide.
It provides cooperatives and other businesses a standardized way to assess, communicate and celebrate dairy’s long-standing sustainability story to buyers and stakeholders.
The guide includes direction on what to track and communicate and how to do it for farms and processing and manufacturing plants. It aligns with the Farm Smart tool developed by the industry to measure these indicators. The Innovation Center also is working with Field to Market to align its Fieldprint Calculator, an online, outcome-based tool for growers.
Measuring sustainability efforts can provide benefits to dairy businesses by identifying which resources are being used most efficiently and cost-effectively. Businesses can determine if changes in management practices or investments in technology are paying off.
The guide was created in 2013 and has been revised to include more topics, such as water quantity and quality and soil health and nutrients for farms. Resource recovery and air emissions have been added for processors and manufacturers.
It currently is going through a 60-day stakeholder consultation period (Jan. 11 to March 10), during which companies that buy dairy products and other stakeholders can provide feedback. The guide previously went through a comment period with dairy cooperatives and processors who are members of the Innovation Center.
The updated version will be available at Steward and Sustainability Guide this spring.
