Autor: Birgit Buddendiek

In Holland, the Denmark headquartered dairy cooperative Arla is recruiting dairy farmers to increase the supply of pasture milk. This because of the increasing demand for Arla dairy products. Current Arla has in Holland around one hundred member dairy farms that supply milk to Arla. Arla has a processing unit in Holland were annual around 300 employees process around 300 million liter milk.

In Holland, three months after he took into office, Erwin Wunnekink has stepped down as the Chair and Member of the Board of dairy cooperative Royal FrieslandCampina. He commented this as that there is a lot of unrest in the cooperative and in the sector and that in particularly in these times unity and decisiveness is needed. With his decision to step down, he wants to contribute to improving support for, and restoring confidence in, the Board. Wunnekink had been a member of the Cooperative Board and the Supervisory Board since December 2009 and had been Vice-Chair of both bodies since December 2016.

The Holland headquartered dairy cooperative Royal FrieslandCampina has got messages of cancelling membership of 239 member farmers. They will leave RFC ultimo this year 2021. This means that RFC will lose the supply of around 300 million liter milk.

The Holland headquartered Royal DSM, has got approval from the Brazilian and Chilean authorities to commercialise its methane-reducing feed additive for ruminants Bovaer. According to DSM just a quarter teaspoon of Bovaer per cow per day suppresses the enzyme that triggers methane production in a cow’s rumen and consistently reduces enteric methane emission by approximately 30 percent for dairy cows and even higher percentages (up to 90%) for beef cows. Bovaer has recently been filed for registration in Europe. Registrations of the feed additive in other regions will follow.

In Holland in June the milk processing companies Farm Dairy and Veco announced that the private dairy Farm Dairy would take over the private dairy Veco Zuivel. But talks failed. Now dairy trader Farmel will buy a majority of stocks of Veco.

In Holland in 2020 in supermarkets was organic milk the most bought organic consumer product, followed by organic eggs and organic yoghurt. Sales of organic products in supermarkets increased in 2020 12.9 percent. Total market share of organic products in supermarkets is in Holland 3.26 percent. (Source: Bionext.)

Holland had in 2020 a number of 506 organic dairy farms, 18 more than in 2019.

In Holland an analyses of the accountancy service Alfa shows that productions costs of milk milked by robot is 49 eurocent per 100 kilogram higher than of milk out of a parlour. Another analyses shows that from 2015 till 2020 dairy farms average earned 89 percent of their income with cows and milk.The rest was earned with among others selling grown products and compenstion for nature maintenance.

Holland had on April 1, 2021 a number of 1.57 million dairy cows which was 1.4 percent less than one year before. The number of youngstock was 967000 head which was 3.4 percent more than one year before. An average dairy farm had 103 cows and 58 hectare land which means average 1.77 cows per hectare. (Source: Statistics Netherlands)

In the United Kingdom the National Farmers Union (NFU) has published an ambitious new export strategy to help the British dairy sector unlock new opportunities in international markets. NFU’s Dairy Export Strategy key asks: Form a new taskforce which aims to improve and increase dairy exports; The British dairy sector to collaborate on a new strategy to grow dairy exports; Government investment, in partnership with the industry, to drive dairy exports through trade deals, agriculture counsellors, and market development; Encourage investment in domestic processing capacity to take advantage of new markets; Provide a stable regulatory environment for dairy farmers to thrive; Develop an increased focus and build on existing work by existing organizations on dairy exports and market development. According to the NFU the new export strategy could double the value of British dairy exports over the next ten years.

In the United Kingdom, because of a deficiency of truck drivers it is hard for dairies to pick up milk from farms in time. Also delivery of feed is causing problems.

In Ireland in August milk supply to dairies was 5.4 percent bigger than in August 2020 which made total supply in 2021 so far 6.2 percent bigger than in 2020.

In Ireland in the 2021 calving season the national calving interval has increased by one day to 388 days, from 387 days in 2020. The best ten percent of the dairy farms have a calving interval of 364 days, the worse ten percent dairy farms have a calving interval of 422 days. The Irish national target is a calving interval of 365 days. The average replacement rate is 19 percent. Of the heifers average 74 percent calved at an age of 22 to 26 months. Of all calvings average 67 percent took place in a six week period, of the top ten percent dairy farms this was 87 percent and of the bottom ten percent of the dairy farms this was 40 percent.

The Denmark headquartered dairy cooperative Arla will explore regenerative dairy farming practices on 24 pilot farms and create data-driven proof points of their impact on nature and climate. At the same time more than 900 organic Arla farmers will measure their soil carbon content and register practices that promote biodiversity. The first step is to establish a pilot programme created in partnership with regenerative farming experts. Across the five countries United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark, 24 selected pilot farmers will be trained and coached to implement various regenerative methods, and their learnings combined with data collection will build knowledge of how regenerative methods can be applied to different dairy farming systems in Europe and how they impact climate and nature. They are a mix of conventional farmers with both grazed and fully housed systems and organic farmers. They have agreed to be pilot farmers for a period of four years. The farmers will help gather data and assess various methods to understand what effect they can have on soil health, carbon capture, biodiversity, ecosystem processes, farm profitability, and farmer well-being. The second step is a commitment from the cooperative’s 916 organic farmers. Starting this year, they will self-assess and register their farm’s biodiversity activities once every year to generate data. In addition to this, they will collect soil samples, which will be analysed by a third party laboratory to establish a baseline for their soil carbon. Furthermore, the organic farmers will guarantee that a number of soil health and biodiversity measures are activated on their farms. They will get access to a lever catalogue including information about how to measure and manage improvements. From 2022, they will also self-assess soil health indicators e.g. testing soil smell, spading ease, and earthworm counts.

In Sweden the average milk yield of recorded cows has first time reached crossed the border of 11000 kg ECM. (ECM: energy-corrected milk, taking into account the fat and protein content.) Annual results from season 2020/21 show the average yield of 10521 kg milk or 11009 kg ECM. This is an increase of 289 kg of milk and 330 kg ECM. The number of cows in Sweden decreased 2.5 percent and the number of herds decreased 5.9 percent.The average number of cows per herd increased from last year’s 93 to this year’s 97 cows. Of the cows 62.5 percent belongs to the Holstein breed and 36.2 percent to the Swedish Red breed (SRB) breed.

The Finland headquartered dairy cooperative Valio and the Switzerland headquartered food and beverage ingredient distributor DKSH have signed an agreement on the distribution of special milk powders to Valio’s industrial customers in the Asian markets Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan and Singapore. The majority of the population in South-East Asia is not able to consume dairy products because of the lactose in milk. Industry-tailored, lactose-free Valio Eila products are gut-friendly and can be consumed also by people who typically cannot consume milk products.

In Finland in 2020 of the dairy farms 54 percent was milking by pipeline, 27 percent by robot, 18 percent in a parlour and one percent by bucket installation.