Episode 01 (Season 03) - Innovative Farming - The Key to Sustainable Dairy?

Arla has opened its first innovation farm in Denmark to accelerate the development and demonstrations of new solutions for animal welfare, biodiversity, and the transition to more sustainable farming. VikingGenetics is collaborating in this, helping identify and breed more climate-friendly cows with fewer emissions.

But does an Arla innovation farm do differently from other dairy farms? What opportunities will this offer to future-friendly farming?

To learn what innovative dairy farming looks like and what developments are critical for a transition to be more sustainable, we are joined by an organic dairy farmer with over 25 years of experience and two innovation experts in the studio.

Guests:
Tatiani Bula Sundgaard, Agriculture Innovation Manager at Arla Foods
Torben Sønderby, dairy farmer, owner of Klink Økologi
Jan Lassen, PhD, Senior Project Manager at VikingGenetics

Host:
Tomás De La Rosa

Transcript

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Arla has opened its first innovation farm in Denmark to accelerate the development and demonstrations of new solutions for animal welfare, biodiversity and the transition to more sustainable farming. VikingGenetics is collaborating in this, helping identify and breed more climate-friendly cows with fewer emissions. But what does an Arla innovation farm do differently from other dairy farms? What opportunities will this offer to future-friendly farming? To learn what innovative dairy farming looks like and what developments are critical for a transition to be more sustainable, we are joined by an organic dairy farmer with over 25 years of experience and two innovation experts in the studio. Tatiani Bula Sundgaard, Agriculture Innovation Manager at Arla Foods, Torben Sønderby, dairy farmer and owner of Klink Økologisk, and Jan Lassen, Ph.D., Senior Project Manager at VikingGenetics. This is the BreedCast produced by VikingGenetics. I'm your host, Tomás De La Rosa. Hello and welcome Tati, Torben and Jan. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks for inviting. Tati, you’re originally from Brazil. You have a master's degree in Ruminant Nutrition and Dairy and Beef Production. And you've worked at Arla for nearly eight years now. Yes. You and your colleagues, you work very closely with Arla's four innovation farms, including Torben’s farm, Klink Økologisk. Torben, we're delighted to have you joining us all the way from West Jutland. Thank you for coming in. Let's start by discussing Arla Innovation Farm in Denmark, which opened just a couple of months ago in April this year. What does an Arla Innovation Farm do differently from other dairy farms? Well, first of all, thank you for having us. It's a pleasure to be here and to be part of the BreedCast. Yes, that's a very good question. What does an innovation farm do differently than other farms? I would start by saying that the ambition with the innovation farms, is actually to test new concepts and solutions and develop new technologies and also share the knowledge that we have there. So a big part of what we do at the innovation farms is actually to be a place to have open doors to guests that are visiting the farm and that are getting to know not only what we do on farm, but also what we do in Arla in general in terms of like the sustainability agenda that we have, but especially also what is happening in the industry. So it's a place where we want to bring the industry together, different partners, stakeholders, also customers, commercial teams, NGOs, politicians, where we hope that we are able to share a bit more about everything that we are doing and educate them a bit more, not only on the farming that we have today, but also on the farming of the future. And another big part of it, is to be open to having innovation projects. So we really hope to have some great partnerships and solutions that can help us to create the future of dairying. Jan, welcome back to the studio. How is VikingGenetics collaborating in Arla’s Innovation Farm? Yeah, first of all, I think it's important to say that VikingGenetics and Arla have collaborated for many, many years. From the beginning of reproduction technologies and dairy production. One of the main drivers in our breeding goal that is milk production and that is run by the price of milk. And when we get the improvement of milk production, then that comes back to Arla also that they get the higher milk production per cow and they get also better quality because we select for that. So, the collaboration has run for many years. Specifically at the Arla Innovation Farm today we are installing the CFIT equipment and we have these methane sniffers installed. So that means that we both get an indirect measurement of methane production through the feed intake. We know that the biggest driver for methane production, that is feed intake. So if we can get more efficient cows, everything else being equal, we should also be able to reduce the climate footprint, and the climate footprint and the resource efficiency. I think these are the two main things, at least in the innovation farm and something where VikingGenetics and Arla have exactly the same goals. And we will discuss dairy's carbon footprint, saved feed and more later in the episode. Jan, what are some of the other technologies installed at the innovation farm? Yeah, I know that there is this green feed equipment out in Torben’s farm. Torben also has the milking robot that is one of... kind of a special technology and something we can use also in the attempt to reduce the climate footprint from the milking production. Can you expand a little on that, Torben? What technologies have you got installed at your farm? Yeah. As Jan says, we have this GreenFeed that is trying to sniff how much methane the cow is bringing out. We are also beginning to install the equipment called CFIT that can measure how much feed the cows are eating. And then we have the robots that can measure how much milk they're giving. So hopefully we will find the most efficient cow for the future. But from the outside, I don't think you can see that it's a special farm. When you come inside, you can see some of these equipment. Just to add to this. I think that's one of the really, really nice things about this approach that is that Torben's farm is not as such special as you say. It is a commercial farm. The results we will get there will be directly transferable to the neighbor farm. And I think that's one of the good things about this, the whole approach in this innovation farm. Yeah. And if I may, and I think it's some very good points that Torben and Jan put because that's the goal with the innovation farms. We want to make it as a place that we can share the learnings also with our own farmers and share best practices and really be open to what works and what doesn't work. And like the GreenFeed project that they mentioned, which is called METAKS, and it's a project that is led by Seges Innovation together with some other partners. And it's really interesting because there we are also measuring the methane emissions from housed cows with the cows that are grazing and then afterwards try to see if there is a pattern. So I think it's really interesting. And other than that, we also have a very practical hands on project with silage and trying to really bring a gold standard to silage management and the use of silage Inoculum. So, trying to also reduce the feed waste on farm, which impacts directly with some of our “Big 5” to name feed efficiency especially, in use. So I think there was a lot there that we can do on a practical everyday that hopefully can also help to improve for other farmers too. And how will you share this knowledge? When I get visitors on my farm, tell them about what we are doing, what we are working with, but also the way I'm collecting a lot of data on my farm, send them to the university to special people, for example Jan who can try to take this data together and get some results out of that, but also, you know, have the knowledge to the advisors to give them the opportunity to go to other farms and tell them about what they can do better. So a lot of work with collecting data. Yeah no doubt. So, I’d like to add that if we look at the farmer point of view, I think in Arla we already have also many different channels that we use to share information with our owners and to name a few. We have a channel called Arla Farmers. We also have different farmer meetings, but we also have some knowledge building events and lately also a podcast called More Than Milk, which if the listeners have not got the chance to listen yet, they are more than welcome to do so because it's through these channels that we hope to be able to share what we are doing together with our partners and the results that we are getting in these farms and just to take the chance to actually mention that here we are talking about the innovation farm, but it's not the only places where Arla has innovation projects throughout. I think the podcast will share a bit more, but we have other types of farms and projects going on in different regions as well. So it's just you mention that there is a lot going on with many different partners and it's a way to bring the sector and the industry together. So together we can hopefully find the solutions we need. Very exciting stuff. Torben, what does it mean to be an innovation farmer? It means that what I agreed with Arla that they can have about 100 visits every year on my farm, and I have to have an open farm. So I have to open my farm for people who want to take some tests on my farm. So I think that’s the most special thing about this innovation farm. So, it's about sharing your experience with the rest of the world? Yes. And something that is very interesting and I would say it's a very heartfelt story about your farm is that it was your son that convinced you to apply to become an innovation farmer. How did that come about? Arla asked for a farm to be in this innovation farm. And I told my son about it. I thought it was exciting, but I thought, Oh, I think there's a lot of work in that. But my son was asking me

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Are we going to be this innovation farm? I said, Oh, I don't think so. And then he asked again and again and again. And then suddenly he convinced me. So we said to Arla; If you want, we would like to be your innovation farm. And then they came to visit us and have a talk with us, me and my son and then suddenly we were Arla’s Innovation Farm. Yeah. And I would like to say that together with Torben, we had 30 more farms that actually applied to become the Danish innovation farm. So we visited some of them and then we just decided together with a team where it would be better placed. And I think as you can see today, I think Torben is our great Danish innovation farmer and very open minded and open to innovation as well and ready to share his knowledge. We've heard about what makes Arla’s Innovation Farm so unique. Now I'd like to focus on how Arla and its farmers are reducing dairy's carbon footprint and how genetics contributes towards this goal. Tati, the Arla sustainability data highlights five effective climate action areas that the farmers can work on. You call these the “Big Five”, you've mentioned them. What are these? Yeah, they are called “Big Five” and they are Feed Efficiency, Protein Efficiency, Land Use, Fertilizer Use and Animal Robustness. Can you expand a little on each of them? Yeah. So we have seen with the climate checks that we have now performed for some years, that these “Big Fives” are the main areas that we would like to focus. So together they account for 78% of the variation between Arla farms' carbon footprint. And so there is a lot in it, as you can hear that we can investigate and do together. Torben, how do you apply these “Big Five” to your daily work? Yeah, at first, for example, about feed efficiency, we tried to measure how much we have, for example, grass outcome from the fields, and we weigh it so we know exactly how much feed we have stored in the bunkers. And then also when we are mixing the feed, we are again weighing all our feed to make the perfect mix, and we make also the mix together with our advisors. So we will have the best and most efficient mix for the cows and we try to have focus on these “Big Five” topics. For example, in the past we actually were very good at feed efficiency and then when we had this climate check and saw the result of the climate checks in Arla I could see, oh, suddenly we weren't so efficient on feed efficiency. So we had lost focus. So I think a lot of these things are something about focus on what you are doing on your farm. I think that's a very good point, Torben, because when you look at the “Big Five”, there is nothing really new in it. But it's about having the focus, the focus on those numbers, on those specific areas, because we believe there is a lot that could be improved or made in a different way with better results. And looking towards these better results, where do cattle breeding and genetics fit in Arla’s sustainability puzzle? So again, I would say it's linking to the “Big Five”. When we look, as I said, 70% of this variation between Arla farms’ carbon footprint comes from this. And if you take, for instance, the feed efficiency, I think that's like a big part of it and breeding, it's actually a key lever to feed efficiency. So it goes well hand-in-hand together. In other words, so if we think like if we want to produce the same amount of milk, but we want the animal to eat a bit less, so less feed, less feed that is digested, it means less methane that is produced and emitted and consequently also less feed that needs to be grown. So I think it’s just a win-win situation. And that's what I think is really fascinating about the different partnerships and that we need to work together to find the best solutions. I think if you're good on the “Big Five”, you will also have a good financial outcome from your farm, so I think that’s two things that go hand in hand. Yeah, definitely. Jan, you’re the feed efficiency expert, would you like to expand on that? Yeah, well I think one of the things that also can be mentioned here is that, I think one of the biggest motivations you have no matter what you work with that is peer comparisons, right? So, comparison with your colleagues and if you can see that you're a little lower, I think that's a better motivation than whoever else comes and tells you are a little bit low. If you're a consultant, come and say; You should improve efficiency. Then you might say, Well, yeah, that's okay, but we'll stay here. But if you see that you are in the bottom half or whatever, then that's a motivation, That's a true motivation. And I think with this tool that Arla has developed, I think that makes a lot of peer comparisons with your colleagues. And I think that's something that also drives it. And I agree if you're good in “Big Five”, then you should have a good economy also in your farm. And something good, I think about sharing the knowledge with each other, to my neighbor farmers and so on. I think that's a very good thing about the system. Yeah, and just to point out, I think that's what is so beautiful about data and collection of data, because we can use that data to improve what we are doing today. And I think that's one of the big parts that we want the innovation farms to be part of to really help to see how can we use this data that we have from the different areas and then put it together. And data is an important part of what we do here at VikingGenetics cattle breeding the Nordics we’re very proud of the amount of data that informs all the different indexes and all the data that we can use to back up what we do, including breeding traits. Jan, what traits should a farmer who wants to breed more sustainable cows focus on? Yeah, all of them. That's easy. Because you can say, given the talk we have here now, of course it's easy to say methane emission and feed efficiency. That's easy to say. But if a cow cannot reproduce, well, what's the effort then? So it's not worth anything. So you have to have... A sustainable cow is a cow that in my mind, a cow that Torben doesn't recognize in his herd. It’s the cow he never meets because she's walking out there eating her feed and giving birth to a calf occasionally and producing a lot of milk without getting sick. So, that's kind of... I would say that we don't have any indices on our bulls that is not a sustainability index or part of the sustainability index. But of course, right now we're in a situation where the climate footprint of milk production is very much in focus. So, with the feed efficiency indices and the methane indices, they are crucial. But again, if we don't bring milk production along, then it's not worth the effort, in my opinion, because what we should improve that is the milk we can produce per liter of methane we release. Not just releasing methane because then we will have this effect of work just going to other countries where they would produce with a much larger climate footprint than we do in Denmark. There are many big data tools to back up this. Oh, yes, certainly. Yes. Yeah. There's so much data that is being collected on commercial farms and both in Denmark, Sweden and Finland where VikingGenetics operates. We have a long tradition of collecting all kinds of data on all kinds of animals. And putting into also international databases and sharing it between the countries into good breeding evaluation. So, that's a long tradition we have. Among them, one of these tools might be the saved feed index. Can you tell our newer listeners what the saved feed index is? Yeah, the saved feed index, that is that is an index that says something about feed efficiency on the cows or on the bulls. So, it's combined of two indices, one on metabolic efficiency. So that is how good is a cow to transfer the feed she eats into products such as milk of course but also into fetus, but also into slaughter weight. And then the other part that is the maintenance index. So, that's a little bit like Torben and me. If I need more to eat to maintain my body, then Torben needs because he is much more slim than I am. So the maintenance index is something that says something about how much should you eat in order to maintain the body weight you have. And there we can say that we get credit to the smaller cows so that we want in the future a cow that is a little bit smaller so that she works better in the future than the big cow does. Thank you. And for those other interested in learning more about the saved feed index and food efficiency, we have two other BreedCast episodes on the subject, which I encourage you to dive into, and our listeners out there can also have a more profitable feed efficient dairy herd with world class Nordic genetics. To discover what VikingGenetics breeding bulls are available, please visit VikingGenetics.com and browse our Holstein, Red and Jersey bulls' selection. We've spoken about farmers’ efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Now let's discuss the role that technology has and how to contribute towards this by helping farmers breed more sustainable and feed efficient cows. One of the technologies being used at the Arla Innovation Farm here in Denmark are state of the art methane sniffers installed at the milking robot measuring the cows’ individual emissions. Jan, what role do methane sniffers play? They are kind of the backbone in the methane index we are working on to make available for the farmers that choose to use VikingGenetics bulls. That is a direct measurement of methane emission that is made individual on the cows that are getting milked in the milking robot. So every time a cow gets into the milking robot, we have this machine that sucks a little bit of air from the feeding trough that is in the milk and robot. And then from each visit we make a registration out of the data that comes out. We make a measurement every second during a milking. And Torben, I guess your cows, they get milked 6 to 12 minutes or something like that per milking. So we get measurements throughout that whole milking and then we transfer these registrations from all the milkings into a daily production of methane from each cow. And then you can do all kinds of things with that data. What we probably will end up with is a weekly methane phenotype that says this cow here has produced so many grams of methane in this week. So she is higher or lower than the average. And that kind of data, that is then what we would put into a model that then if we have 15 offspring of one bull, then that bull will get a breeding value based on those animals and whatever offspring that is related to this bull will produce. So eventually you'll end up with a breeding value for methane based on direct measurements. Tati, can you tell me about the value that Arla sees in these sniffers? I think it’s of great value, as Jan pointed out so well. I think the amount of data that we can get and accuracy of the data because of the number of individual cows that are being measured on the every day is just great. And so we are just very happy to be part of this project and very happy to have it at the innovation farm because again, thinking about sharing the learnings and educating people on what we are doing, I think it's a big part of it that people see for themselves and they can understand a bit more about what together we are trying to achieve. And also the sniffers are not just... I presented as it was merely for genetic evaluation. That is not the case. This data will actually be available for hopefully improving the already good climate footprint index that is in Arla, but also hopefully to improve the Danish reporting for IPCC. So right now the IPCC reporting is based on the data from really good high quality data from the research facility in Foulum. But in the future, if we have 100 fold as many cows with data from commercial farms, we should be able to do something that is equally good to that and hopefully also better. So, that's another part of it. Yeah, definitely. I see that we are definitely contributing to the industry. So yeah, it's great to be part of it. And as we previously discussed, feed efficiency is one of the focus areas for Arla and its farmers. What technologies are available to monitor feed efficiency? Yes. Right now if you want to measure it on an individual level, there are very few options. There are some scale based measurement techniques, that is called the Insentec and Growsafe and also one that is called bio control. They are mainly - not 100% - but mainly installed in research facilities as we know around the world. And they provide good data, but they are also rather expensive and not very easy to work with in commercial settings as in Torben’s farm. Some of them need to be emptied with the vacuum cleaner and so on. I don't know if Torben would be interested in emptying 60 bins with the vacuum cleaner every day and so on. So, we have worked a lot here in VikingGenetics with this 3D camera based equipment called CFIT, where we put cameras in the ceiling of the farm. And then we can use that to quantify how much each individual cow eats in a day. And that is getting installed at Torben's farm and getting to work. So that, again, this data should be... Again, if Torben cannot use this data for management, it's difficult to use it for breeding value estimation also. And that data should also be made available to make improvement of the climate assessment tool in Arla. Torben, what excites you most about saved feed? Oh, a lot of cameras to film me. No, I think, the way we hopefully can measure how much feed the cows are eating individually so we can find again the best cow for the future to breed on. I think that's very exciting and I think it's incredible they can do it, actually. And also about the weight of the cow. Of course, I would really want to know in the start of a lactation how much weight a cow is losing and when will then be the best time to inseminate it again for the next lactation. So I hope I'll get the data for management on how I will do it in the future. Tati, you mentioned that Arla has a few other types of farms out there, what are other innovative farming developments and technology that excite you? That's another good question. I think technology and innovation in general is very exciting. So, I get really excited to see everything that is out there and the new solutions that we have today. But I would also like to start by saying that I think in order to achieve to be carbon neutral by 2050, which is our goal, we need solutions that are still in development now and most likely we will end up using some of the innovations that don't even exist yet. So I think it's just really important to be open for innovation and different ways of doing things so we can get better. But as I mentioned before, in Arla we have the innovation farms. And just to point out, Torben is our Danish innovation farm, but we also have three others which together we are building a network and the other three: one is in the UK, one in Sweden, and we just signed a contract with another one in Germany which will be launched in August this year. And then we really hope to be sharing best practices and ways of working and yeah, be complementing each other because farming is complex and it's also different. So if we see like Torben is organic and then the other three they are conventional, but one of them, our Swedish farmer, he's also part of a regenerative pilot program. So there are so many management systems and different ways of doing things and I think it's just important to be open for innovation and solutions in the different types that we have. And just to finalize, apart from that of the innovation farm network, we also have what we call pilot farms and also R&D farms, which are other types of farms that are testing different types of things and have projects, but they are more project based. So whenever we need something for a specific project, like for instance, to test the Bovaer that we have at the moment, then we go out there and then we recruit farms specifically for that. And I think the main difference with the innovation farm is that is something more permanent and that is, as I mentioned in the beginning, ready to open doors and receive guests. So we can also share a bit more of what we are doing. Jan, are there any specific new technologies that excite you? Oh, many, many, many. You can easily get enough data, but you can never get enough good data. And I think that... Just because there is a new gadget that provides a lot of data. It's not necessarily good. So, we have to be... And I think that's also... I don't think that Arla expect that all technology that will be tested in the innovation farm will work and be for the better. But I think someone said that if you have control of everything, then you're not moving. So, we kind of have to also let go of the control sometimes and then test something that perhaps is too crazy. But it might also be there that we find the real diamond. Yeah. And I totally agree with Jan. And I think that's what happens when you think of research. Some things will work and some things won’t. For instance, I can say one area that is really close to my heart and I know it's also very close to Torben’s is biodiversity, and we are very excited to also see what is out there that could help us to collect some data and then afterwards how to use this data, how to read that and become better at something. So not only keeping like the nature that we have around us, but how can we also make it better and improve things? To conclude, Torben, what would you say to farmers who are looking to take steps towards more future-friendly farming? I think the demand of milk is increasing, so we need to find a way of producing feed in a sustainable way. And I think as we said before, if you are more sustainable, you are more efficient. And again, it's financially good for me as a farmer. And then I think we have a good model in Arla with the incentive model that helps me to find the way and help me also to find the good way to be more efficient and then again more sustainable and actually compensate me on different things if I have to invest in something. So I think we have found a very good model for the farmers, yeah. So I look into a bright future to be a dairy farmer. And if I may just add, I think another very good point, just to add to what Torben said, is that the customer and the consumer demand is also out there. And automation in some countries. Also the legislation of becoming more sustainable and being better at what we are doing. So I think it's just a natural path, and we need to look towards the future and think long term as well. And that's what we are trying to do here. And I think we have to move as a dairy because yes, we are producing a lot of methane. So we have to be more efficient and be better in the future. So we have a little pressure on us. But I think if we are doing it right, I think we have a bright future. Thanks for joining us on the BreedCast today. We've discussed Arla's new Innovation Farm in Denmark, how Arla and its farmer owners are taking steps towards more future-friendly farming and the tools to help farmers breed healthy, efficient cows that emit less methane. If you want to learn more about VikingGenetics, our dairy and beef breeds, get tips and tricks for breeding and management and much more, please visit our website; VikingGenetics.com. Huge thanks to Tatiani Sundgaard, Torben Sønderby and Jan Lassen for sharing their insights. A shout out to you all listening out there. If you have an idea for a topic in the world of cattle breeding, you would like us to focus on, Please visit BreedCast.com or message us on the VikingGenetics Facebook page. I'm your host, Tomás De La Rosa. Please join me for the next BreedCast episode where we'll have a look at the VikingJersey breed and why it has become a popular choice among farmers moving away from Holstein cows and switching breeds.