The global dairy sector launched Pathways to Dairy Net Zero last year to demonstrate its commitment to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while continuing to provide nutritious foods for six billion people and livelihoods for one billion.

Since then, nearly 100 leading organizations have declared their support for this important climate initiative, including the 10 largest dairy companies in the world. Collectively, they represent more than 30% of global milk production. Your organization can join this growing movement as an implementer that takes direct action on GHG mitigation, or as a supporter of the initiative’s principles.

Other key updates include:

• A comprehensive research program is underway to develop GHG mitigation pathways for a variety of dairy production systems.  The work, which is being led by the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), includes the development of pathways, tools and methodologies needed to transform climate action commitments into positive, practical actions. The research will finalize the identification and definitions of dairy system typologies, develop GHG mitigation/reduction options and estimate the climate impacts of these options for each system, and estimate baseline emissions (2015) from the global sector and project emissions to 2050.

• Pathways to Dairy Net Zero was featured at a side event during the recent Committee on Agriculture (COAG) Sub-Committee on Livestock. The first, “Pathways to Dairy Net Zero: How Transformative Agri-Food Systems Can Help Achieve the SDGs,” was co-sponsored by Global Dairy Platform, the International Dairy Federation and the US Government. The event included presentations by Cindy McCain, US Ambassador to the UN agencies for Food and Agriculture, and Maria Helena Semedo, Deputy Director-General of FAO. In addition, Margaret Rugut Kibogy from the Kenya Dairy Board, Marilyn Hershey, a US dairy farmer and chair of Dairy Management Inc., and Margaret Munene, founder of Palmhouse Dairies in Kenya, provided key insight from the farmer and processor perspectives.

• The dairy sector is accelerating climate action all over the world. India’s National Dairy Development Board is promoting sustainable technologies to dairy farmers to help reduce GHG emissions.

The steering group behind Pathways to Dairy Net Zero includes GDP, IDF, Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform, Dairy Sustainability Framework, IFCN Dairy Research Network, and the International Livestock Research Institute. GRA is the initiative’s knowledge partner, with strong support from FAO.

Dairy Nourishes Africa (DNA), a GDP-founded initiative that demonstrates the positive impact the global dairy sector can have in helping to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges, has received scale-up funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The $3.2 million grant will be administered by the Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank to support a three-year work program focused on farmer-allied processors as linchpins for driving transformational improvement. DNA connects local, underutilized and inefficient resources with the expertise of the global dairy sector to deliver economic, environmental and societal change.

GDP works closely with Land O’Lakes Venture37 and Bain & Company as implementation partners for the DNA project.

For more information or to join this effort, contact: DNA@GlobalDairyPlatform.com