Dairy Data Warehouse: Sustainably Getting Every Drop of Milk From the Land using the power of data

“Buy land. They’re not making any more of it.” This quote from Mark Twain reminds us of one of the agriculture industry’s largest challenges—producing enough food to feed a growing global population with a limited amount of land.

By 2050, the global population is expected to hit 9.7 billion. As a result, animal-based livestock production has increased 400 percent worldwide in the past five decades, with milk and meat consumption expanding three times more in developing countries.

At Dairy Data Warehouse (DDW), we gather data from dairy farms around the globe, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from millions of lactations. Our goal is helping the dairy industry make better decisions, so dairy producers can ensure that their land is being optimized to produce the maximum amount of milk. When land is used optimally, then it’s also at its most sustainable.

“By helping dairy industry stakeholders ensure that dairy cattle are the healthiest and highest-yielding cows, we can help improve productivity on dairies,” said Armin Pearn, Head of Data Insights, DDW. “Dairies that are at the top of their game with productivity are, in turn, more carbon efficient.”

Because livestock and crop activities contribute between 10 to 12 percent of global greenhouse emissions, it is imperative that dairy production becomes more sustainable, while also remaining profitable.

Identifying the Yield Gap

The yield gap is defined as the difference between the attainable and current productivity for an agricultural product, and dairy is no exception. Actual yield is the average yield for a specific location, and potential yield is the maximum achievable yield under best management practices.

When dairy businesses work to address that yield gap, they are also focusing on improving sustainability, so it’s a win-win.

“By helping dairy industry stakeholders ensure that dairy cattle are the healthiest and highest-yielding cows, we can help improve productivity on dairies."

By increasing animal production per animal and per  unit land area used by that animal, dairy production is more sustainable. However, management practices improved in the name of sustainability should not compromise animal welfare.

“What we found is that we in order to stay within the environmental limits of the food system, we need…very ambitious changes in technology use and management practices at the farm level,” said Professor Marco Springmann, University of Oxford, United Kingdom.

Milk production by dairy cows is a result of the animal’s genotype, the ambient climate, feed quality and available feed quantity. However, the biggest increases in milk production are a result of incorporating multiple interventions. That’s where DDW comes in.

How does Dairy Data Warehouse do its bit to help decrease the yield gap

With so much data sourced from dairy farms around the globe, DDW is able to equip companies that serve the dairy value chain with information they can use to make better decisions—and help their customers achieve even higher sustainability, productivity and profitability.

For example, a dairy genetics supervisor is seeing trends based on genetic selections for high milk production, thanks to data she’s received from DDW. When visiting her dairy farm customers, she is able to pinpoint bulls that the operation should incorporate into their artificial insemination breeding program, resulting in dairy cows that are more efficient and producing more milk. Less inputs means more sustainability for the entire dairy industry—and that ripple effect will be felt throughout the entire value chain.

Another example might be a veterinary company that produces monitoring systems used on dairy farms. They’re seeing herd health issues before they even happen thanks to machine learning from millions of lactations. That company provides guidance to their technical team on how to work with dairy herd managers and their veterinarians to get ahead of potential herd health problems, leading to healthier, more productive cows.

At DDW, we are the go-between that can provide valuable insights to companies that serve the dairy industry. With those insights, our customers are better able to make decisions that can result in more dairy cows producing milk to their optimum level, resulting in a positive impact on dairy sustainability and contributing to decreasing the yield gap.

Visit DDW's YouTube channel: dairy data warehouse

For more information visit www.dairydatawarehouse.com or send an email to inquiries@dairydatawarehouse.com