Last November at the Dairy Sustainability Alliance meeting in Glendale, Ariz., nearly 300 dairy industry leaders met to discuss how USDA Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities projects can help secure a climate-smart and profitable future for dairy farmers.
The Alliance, formed through the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, consists of companies and organizations across the dairy community and others who want to contribute to dairy’s social responsibility journey.
The USDA Partnership for Climate Smart Commodities announced grants totaling up to $2.8 billion nationally for 70 projects last September, which include providing technical and financial assistance nationwide for dairy farmers through various advocacy organizations, support for the development of expanded markets and revenue streams, and help for the industry to progress toward meeting its collective 2050 environmental stewardship goals at the field and farm levels.
Lisa Watson, social responsibility officer of the Innovation Center, offered an update on the U.S. Dairy Stewardship Commitment, launched in 2018 to support farmers, cooperatives, and processors who voluntarily work across the industry to advance sustainability leadership and transparently report progress.
Commitment terms of adoption are reviewed every three to five years for consistency with the latest science, insights, and priorities. Commitment adopters represent more than 75 percent of U.S. milk production.
“Commitment helps us earn the trust of stakeholders, achieve aggregate reporting and demonstrate that U.S. dairy is a true global sustainability leader,” she said. “We can say with confidence that U.S. dairy farmers and processors are making a real difference and moving the needle toward achieving the sustainable development goals.”
Mike Haddad, who serves as chair of the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy and chair of Schreiber Foods Inc., also delivered a message about industry unity and alignment on sustainability goals.
“What we’re truly, ultimately after is trust,” Haddad said. “Nobody wants to consume our products just because we tell them, ‘These are so efficiently produced, and we can’t believe the yields we got.’ They don’t care about that. What they want to know is that we took care of our animals, our earth, and our communities along the way – and that we can prove it. It takes us all working together to do that.”