Dairy roadmap heading for success

Dr Karen Wonnacott spoke at the Dairy and the 21st Century Diet: Nutrition and Sustainability conference on the 27th January. We managed to catch her for a few minutes to ask how the dairy road map is progressing and what her one wish for the sector would be.

The conference explored the impact of dairy on sustainability, nutrition and the environment.

The conference kicked off with a presentation from Peter Dawson, policy director at Dairy UK.  Peter gave an insight into the contribution that the dairy industry makes to greenhouse gas emissions.  He highlighted that emissions from dairy are not as high as many think, citing the Food and Agricultural Organisation’s (FAO) report, published in March 2010, which found that greenhouse gas emissions associated with the entire dairy industry, including beef output, are 4% of global man-made emissions, with dairy on its own accounting for only 2.7%.

Following on from this Dr Karen Wonnacott, of DairyCo, a levy-funded, non-profit organisation working on behalf of Britain’s dairy farmers, spoke about the work of the organisation to improve the environmental sustainability of the sector, through the Milk Roadmap; a living document which identifies environmental impact and sets vision for reducing this impact.

Richard Perkins, of the WWF, gave a non-governmental organisation’s view of dairy and sustainability. He highlighted that the dairy industry is the most progressive sector in agriculture in dealing with the issues associated with sustainability and that the Milk Roadmap targets are world leading. His view was that changes in consumption are needed in addition to improvements in production efficiencies.

You can read more about the event and the other speakers here.