Finnish dairy firm Valio has announced plans to develop a carbon-neutral milk chain.
The company made the announcement in response to the impact of the warm summer weather on the dairy supply chain, with much of Europe affected by a long dry spell.
The dairy industry is a major producer of methane, a greenhouse gas, and Valio said that new climate actions are required to both offset that and to tackle future potential impacts on the supply chain.
While it said that a ‘lot has already been accomplished’, with methane produced cut in half over the past 50 years, methods to reduce methane emissions have been exhausted, and a new approach is needed.
It noted that the dairy industry produces around 3% to 4% of Finland’s greenhouse gas emissions, something that has remained unchanged since the 2000s.
Climate Accord
“Merely reducing emissions is not enough if we want to achieve the Paris climate agreement target to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius,” commented Juha Nousiainen, director of farm services at Valio.
“We must also be able to remove emissions from the atmosphere. The importance of forests as carbon sinks has long been known. Now it is time to start setting our sights on soil. Fields may become significant carbon sinks in the future.”
Valio said that a carbon-neutral milk chain has the opportunity to bring savings and cost-efficiency for producers, and can help improve profitability for Finnish agricultural producers.
However, there are still questions as to whether such a goal can be achieved.
Voluntary Process
“We are starting with a few dozen voluntary farms,” said Nousiainen.
“There are already enthusiastic pilot farms that can be found for the cultivated grass groups, for example. We believe that in the upcoming years there might be hundreds of voluntary dairy farms participating in the climate work.”
Valio is in the process of developing what it describes as the ProLanta (‘ProManure’) ecosystem, and has invited a number of industry players to collaborate with it on this project.
“We want to efficiently capture the nitrogen and phosphorus contained in manure and return it to the nutrient cycle,” said Nousiainen.
“Valio has developed a technology that can separate phosphorus and nitrogen from the manure into fertiliser fractions. At the same time, clean water and biogas, which can replace fossil fuels, are created.
“The manure from the Valio Group’s 5,300 farms would create enough biogas for use by all the farm equipment as well as Valio’s collection and delivery trucks. And there would even be some left for the plants to use.”
© 2018 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
