Dairy UK – DairyCo Conference 

“Carbon and Farming - Myths, Challenges and Opportunities”

The dairy industry addressed the environmental agenda by meeting its challenges head on. The pressure to reduce carbon emissions will inevitably return in full force once the economy begins to recover. That’s why it is important for farmers to identify how they can tackle their carbon emissions in developing their businesses.

To brief the industry Dairy UK, in full partnership with DairyCo, held a conference on Carbon and Farming at the Sixways Stadium in Worcester on Tuesday, 22nd June.  

The conference set out the policy background to the issue, look at the measuring tools available to the industry and then set out the solutions farmers can deploy to address their carbon footprint. The conference made it clear that tackling carbon emissions is fully consistent with continued improvements in business efficiency. 

To put the whole issue into context Pierre Gerber of the FAO presented the results of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation report; ‘Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the Dairy Sector – a Life Cycle Assessment’. Other top-line speakers included Tesco, Kite Consulting, Agri assist, and DairyCo.

Conference Programme 

Morning Session 1: Background; context, policy and drivers

• “Dairy Emissions: A global perspective”
  Dr Pierre Gerber – Livestock Policy Officer - FAO
  (Coordinator of the “Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the Dairy Sector – A Life Cycle Assessment” report)
• “Agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions: a policy perspective”
  Dr Bill Parish - Deputy Head and Programme Manager for the Climate Change Mitigation for Agriculture and Food Chain Programme - Defra
• “Carbon Footprinting and Lowering Emissions”
  Emma Jones– Agriculture Manager – Tesco

• “Practical Carbon Footprint Measuring – the farmers’ solution”
  Michael Masters – Agri assist Limited
• “Who Cares wins!”
  John Allen – Managing Partner – Kite Consulting
• “Carbon footprinting in the dairy sector”
  Andie Stephens – Senior Project Manager – Carbon Trust Footprinting Company

Afternoon Session: Solutions 

• “DairyCo’s answer to the environment question”
  Dr Karen Wonnacott - Research and Development Manager – DairyCo
• “A dairy farmer’s solution to tackling the environmental challenge”
  Tim Downes – Organic dairy farmer
• “The Milk Roadmap  - 2 years on”
  Dr Ed Komorowski – Technical Director – Dairy UK