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Milk Sustainability Center to create data interface for dairies

John Deere and DeLaval are partnering to provide dairy farmers a digital system to track efficiency and carbon reduction efforts.

DeLaval’s Joanna Daugaard tells Brownfield John Deere approached their company to find a way to interface farm data.

“We all thought it made sense to combine the herd data with the field data for the farmers, they’re usually different systems so to combine it would really give a holistic view to the farmers,” she shares.

John Deere’s Alex Berges says the Milk Sustainability Center will provide insights into nutrient use efficiency and carbon emissions.

“We will also give more context, which means—how does the farmer compare to peers for the midterm future?” he says.  “We will also give hands on recommendations. We can envision that with the Milk Sustainability Center, the farmer can not only improve the business but also monetize the improvements.”

Berges says the technology lays the groundwork for European dairies to meet climate goals and provides the tracking needed to participate in carbon markets.

“The simple pure benefit for the dairy farmer to reduce losses, to reduce cost, to increase the profit and do something good for the environment justifies the tool itself—and to make it easier to fulfill today’s and future governmental initiated requirements,” he says.

The center will automatically generate information from systems from both companies but can be used across all equipment providers, and more partnerships are in development.

A free version of the system will be released in select parts of North America, Europe, and Canada next summer with a larger launch to follow.

Berges says farmers who stop at the John Deere booth during World Dairy Expo will also be able to learn about the partnership.

Photo courtesy of John Deere.