Communities of Interest – DSF Members delving deeper into the DSF Criteria!

The DSF Animal Care COI’s first meeting of 2025 heard from Mirana Bakari, of Cniel (DSF aggregating member for France), who shared insights into how the French dairy sector has committed to measurable indicators to assess the level of well-being of dairy herds utilising the BoviWell tool.

The BoviWell tool is centred around the Five Freedoms of Animal Welfare and assesses herd welfare using a set of 16 indicators defined by farming professionals, including technicians, and veterinarians.  The approach is underpinned by two objectives: Supporting farmers evolve their practices as part of a more general farming improvement approach, and to be transparent to consumers on the reality of cow welfare on French farms.

Examples of the indicators are:

• observing how the cows behave around people (are they nervous or relaxed),
• signs of lameness or injury,
• quantity, size and cleanliness of drinking troughs,

Over 73% of dairy farms across France have already been assessed and scored for cow welfare.   The intention is to re-visit farms every three years and review progress. Mirana commented that inadequate drinking provision was the most common finding on farms, but this was something that could be easily rectified, relatively cheaply with very positive results to both cow welfare and milk yields.

The DSF GHG Emissions COI’s meeting heard from DSF Implementing member, Lorenzo Cimatti of Granlatte, who shared details of their biomethane project, developed in partnership with some of their supplying dairy farmers and the Confederation of Beet Growers in Italy.  Having recently completed a materiality assessment, the Granlatte and Granarolo Group identified climate change as a high priority, setting a GHG reduction target of 30% per litre of milk produced.  One of the mitigation actions is to become energy self-sufficient.  Ten new biomethane plants are being constructed in the next three years, with the aim of generating the renewable energy needs of Granarolo plants.  For each biomethane plant, a consortium of businesses has come together to form a company comprising a number of dairy farms supplying manure and a number of beet growers supplying crops as feedstock for the plant such as triticale and sorghum.

The GHG Emissions and Animal Care DSF Communities of Interest have consulted extensively to identify which are the key topics they would benefit from most through deeper investigation.

If you are not in any of these COI’s you are missing out.  They enable Members to share in detail the challenges they have in specific areas and can identify solutions collectively through focused and targeted sessions. There are currently COI in Soil, Animal Care, Biodiversity and GHG Emissions.  These COIs are established based on Member demand, so if you want to see activity under another Criteria, just let the Secretariat know.   Members can find more details of the DSF Communities of Interest on the DSF Members Area, or email us, new members are always welcome.