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Dairy Strong starts Sustainability Alliance

A new organization started this week to bring dairy industry businesses and individuals together on sustainability initiatives.

Maria Woldt from the Wisconsin Dairy Business Association says the Dairy Strong Sustainability Alliance was created after a Food Dialogues discussion at a U.S. Farmers and Ranchers meeting last year in Madison, Wisconsin.  “Several groups wanted to come together to form a working group to create a program that would take existing sustainability metrics tools and programs that were out there, not only on a state level but on a national level, and bring them together so that we could measure the sustainability impact of the entire dairy community, all the way from the farm to the retailer.”

The initial working group includes farmers, farm organizations, packagers, retailers, transportation companies, conservation experts, and university scientists.  Woldt says the door is open for more to get involved.  “It’s open to all management philosophies, so whether you’re large or small, conventional, organic, the door is open for everybody.”

Wold says the Dairy Strong Sustainability Alliance will initially focus on Wisconsin and later throughout the Midwest.  She says they will lay out some goals and demonstration projects for the 2017 growing season by the end of this year.