John Deere and DeLaval have developed the Milk Sustainability Center (MSC), a digital programme to help farmers improve the efficiency and sustainability of operations.
The software is said to be open, enabling other companies to join, with the objective of providing farmers with the data needed for a holistic view of operations.
Farmers who take part can use the system to monitor nutrient use efficiency (NUE) for nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium and carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) for the entire farm, specific fields or their herds. It will also provide benchmarking between dairy farms, identifying areas for improvement.
“Dairy farming is perhaps the most complex agriculture business today with no system integration between crop and animal performance. Dairy farmers often use five to seven different, non-connected software solutions to run their business,” said Dave Chipak, director, Dairy & Livestock Production Systems at John Deere. “The MSC will enable dairy farmers to calculate, benchmark, simulate, and optimize NUE and CO2e for sustainable and profitable decision-making.”
Following farmer authorisation, data from DeLaval Plus and the John Deere Operations Center will be automatically pulled into the MSC, reducing manual data input. It’s a cloud-based system that can be accessed via a desktop or through mobile applications.
“Dairy farmers are seeking ways to decrease their environmental footprint and improve sustainability,” said Lars Bergmann, executive vice president, Digital Services, at DeLaval. “The Milk Sustainability Center will help dairy farmers achieve their goals and address growing needs of dairy processors, retailers, government, and ultimately, consumers.”
The initial version will be released free of charge in the US and select European Union countries in summer 2024, with a premium version coming later. More details will be available at the John Deere stand at Agritechnica.
For further information go to www.deere.co.uk
