Sustainability on Your Dairy Farm

LDY is a measure of the entire milk production for each day of the cow’s life. This leads to profitable dairy producers, continued focus on environmental sustainability, as well as keeping the priorities on animal health & welfare and consumer trust. 

What does sustainability mean? 

Reduction of environmental footprint 

• Did you know that reducing age at first calving from 26 to 24 months could decrease the methane produced per litre of milk by 3%?

Animal health and welfare 

• Did you know that reducing culling by 5% could decrease methane produced per litre of milk by 12%? 

Financial performance 

Farming can’t be sustainable if the farmer and future generations of farmers can’t earn an income.

Sustainability can be improved by increasing lifetime performance. Lifetime production is greatly impacted by longevity. The following image helps explain the idea:

LDY is a performance metric of sustainable dairy production, encompassing health, productivity, efficiency, and profitability. The ultimate goal is to improve LDY, and the objective is to achieve 15-20 kg/day of life target. LDY is influenced by: 

• Age at first calving 

• Production per lactation 

• Number of lactations 

Let’s check an example of how age at first calving impacts farm profitability: 

Dairy farming will play a key role in sustainably feeding the world’s population in the coming decades. To meet this challenge, it is important to take care of the animals on the farm, from birth to removal, as efficiently as possible, resulting in a higher lifetime daily yield.