European dairy cooperative Arla Foods and global purpose-led science-based company, Royal DSM, are set to start a large-scale on-farm pilot with the methane reducing feed additive Bovaer® on 10,000 dairy cows across three European countries. Long-standing global research and on-farm trials show that Bovaer® can reduce in methane emissions by around 30 per cent with continued high animal welfare, supporting the companies’ commitment to sustainable dairy production.
Methane emission is one of the dairy industry’s biggest climate challenges. Cows are ruminants, meaning that to digest their feed they continuously burp releasing methane which affects climate change. In fact, 40 per cent of total emissions from Arla Foods’ farms come from their cows’ digestion of feed.
Arla Foods’ farmer owners are among the most climate efficient dairy producers in the world with an average CO2e emission of 1,15kg per kg of raw milk. They are committed to accelerate their reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in this decade, and in line with Arla Foods ambitious sustainability targets across its value chain, the cooperative is set to pilot the use of the new feed additive Bovaer® with 10,000 dairy cows across more than 50 farms in Denmark, Sweden and Germany. The feed additive could reduce methane emissions by around 30 per cent.
