There is a clear need to deliver on sustainability, however, there also remains tremendous uncertainty within the agricultural industry about how to become ‘more sustainable’. This series of three articles outlines Trouw Nutrition’s vision to offer you and your farmers positive support, leadership and practical implementation advice for the environmental and financial sustainability in your business and on farm.
In the first article, Rob Binnekamp, Trouw Nutrition GB General Manager, explains what Trouw Nutrition are doing themselves to become more sustainable and how this benefits their customers.
As part of Nutreco, Trouw Nutrition’s purpose is: ‘Feeding The Future’. Sustainable agriculture is a key pillar in delivering this and protecting the future of farming. Every part of the food and farming supply chain has a role to play in this. Therefore, we must all not only future proof our own operations, but also work with our customers to deliver solutions across the supply chain. We have got a great opportunity to ensure that agriculture provides the solutions to feed our growing population, whilst also protecting the planet.
I believe that the supply trade can take a lead role in helping farmers to deliver more sustainable farming systems. The programmes, products and services we offer have a direct bearing on their net emissions; and through science, research and new advances, the supply chain can be pivotal in leading the farming industry to deliver increased sustainability and reduced emissions together with enhanced farm efficiency and profitability.
As a business, Trouw Nutrition is committed to becoming more sustainable through our Sustainability Roadmap 2025, which focuses on three key areas. Health and Welfare: defining and limiting our use of antibiotics. Climate and Circularity: setting science-based targets and outlining our raw material procurement and recycling goals. And finally, Good Citizenship: delivering on our objectives responsibly.
Being sustainable in our own business practices helps to provide solutions for our partners and end users with R&D backed solutions at farm level aimed at reducing emissions and managing carbon footprint. We are striving to become the sustainable partner of choice, not only providing the most sustainable product range whether that be premix, farm mineral, feed additives or calf milk replacers, but also with digital service solutions to improve efficiency at mill and farm level. Central to this will be innovation and a continued commitment to R&D to create solutions that help farmers reduce their carbon footprint, while managing their animals efficiently and profitably. We present these through science backed programmes linked to animal production lifecycles such as LifeStart, HealthyLife and Precision Nutrition. More to come on these in subsequent articles.
At Trouw Nutrition GB we have already implemented a range of activities and initiatives to incrementally reduce our own carbon footprint and through this contribute to carbon reduction in those businesses downstream from ourselves.
To meet our aspirations for climate change we are reviewing our use of soya and palm oil with the objective that we only use product from 100% certified sources. We are utilising tools internally to calculate the carbon footprint of our own products. This includes looking at our high carbon footprint products and raw materials included in them, challenging where they are purchased and reviewing if we can source better and more responsibly.
The next stage on our quest to reduce energy use will be the installation of solar panels in the first quarter of 2023 to increase our use of renewable energy. We are installing a 1200 panel solar PV system with the capacity to generate 550Kw (peak) of electricity for the site, reducing our CO2 by 82,000kg per year.
We have instigated a major review of packaging which is an activity which has implications across the downward supply chain. The driving philosophy is reduce: reuse: recycle. We will be working with our customers on all our packaging options and investigating different bagging materials to reduce our reliance on plastic. We will be encouraging our customers to move from small bags to larger bags or bulks.
Premix and milk powder manufacture are high energy users, so we have focussed on efficiencies in this area. We have reduced the amount of red diesel used in manufacture by switching to electric forklifts and our company car users are increasingly changing to hybrid cars. We are using the waste heat generated by the compressors in the mill to heat the office building as part of a wider heat recovery system.
We are all about ‘producing more from less’ and this applies to animal proteins, but also to our own production facility. As such, following a period of very heavy investment into our operation, we have now embarked on an Operational Excellence programme. This Nutreco-wide programme is a continuous quest to eliminate losses (e.g. time/yield or wastage) in all our processes through active participation of all the employees in our company. It is essentially aimed at getting the best out of our new equipment. We have already increased overall equipment effectiveness by 15% and increased productivity in the milk plant by 20%. This is done through several ‘Kaizen’ (i.e. continuous improvement) projects, such as the introduction of Autonomous Maintenance and an optimisation of our planning patterns. The latter reduces the amount of change-overs and flushing required, while optimising fleet utilisation for outbound transport to customers.
Increasing throughput and improving efficiency of operations has given a two-pronged approach to reducing the carbon footprint per tonne produced.
While making practical changes to our own business is an essential step, we are also committed to educating the industry on ways to reduce carbon footprint through increased efficiency. We have conducted webinars and other training approaches with over 12,000 farmers, feed advisors and other industry professionals in the last year to explain what we are doing, why we are doing it and the benefits that they can see.
CompounderWe are developing programmes for recycling and reusing as much material as possible and are looking to improve the working life of pallets. We will be introducing a scheme where pallets and packaging becomes 100% recyclable from reuse throughout the whole supply chain network.
All these steps, however small, have and will continue to help us reduce the environmental impact of our business. By so doing we can become the most sustainable in terms of manufacture of our products, delivering environmental benefits to our customer partners and to their customers.
Our journey is gaining pace and we are continuing to make changes within our own operations. In the next article, we will explain how we will be working more closely with our ruminant customers and farmers to be their sustainability partner of choice delivering tangible sustainability benefits.
With Richard Remmer, Pig Technical Manager & Chloe Paine, Poultry Technical Manager, Trouw Nutrition GB
In the second of a series of articles by Trouw Nutrition GB exploring the sustainability challenges facing UK livestock production and the vital role of the supply trade in helping effect change, Pig Technical Manager, Richard Remmer and Poultry Technical Manager, Chloe Paine look at the specific issues affecting their sectors of the industry.
To feed in excess of 10 billion people, the world’s food producers and farmers need to increase food production by 60% while decreasing waste, producing food with 75% fewer emissions. The bottom line is we need to produce more from less.
Rather than being seen solely as the cause of the problem, we must remember that livestock is an integral and important part of the solution providing a circular economy.
Co-products from the food biofuel industries and former food products like bread, biscuits and crisps are often incorporated into monogastric diets rather than being destined for landfill, helping to achieve a circular economy.
At Trouw Nutrition our purpose is ‘Feeding The Future’. Sustainable agriculture is a key pillar in delivering this and protecting the future of farming. We believe we can directly contribute to reducing carbon emissions at farm business level, working with our customers to deliver solutions across the supply chain. We are committed to being proactive in delivering a holistic approach to sustainability on farm, linking environmental and economic sustainability through production efficiency and enhanced lifetime performance. Anything that improves environmental sustainability must also support economic sustainability.
At Trouw Nutrition we believe that sustainable, efficient, lower emission farming is the only way we can strive to reach the increasing worldwide demand for animal products and address the decreasing availability of resources such as land and water. Livestock production needs to increase its productivity and reduce its environmental impact.
Achieving net zero is not a simple solution but a multi-faceted and multi-year journey which must be embarked upon now as it cannot wait. The farming industry needs to take steps now to demonstrably reduce the emissions and environmental impact associated with meat and egg production.
Many factors contribute to a farm’s carbon footprint (see Figure
1a-c). Trouw Nutrition is already able to contribute to improvements in those areas which may account for around 70 - 80% of the carbon footprint of pig and poultry production operations respectively.
These include feeding programmes for young animals, gastrointestinal tract (GIT) development and GIT health, optimising feed formulations to achieve producers’ goals more efficiently and reducing emissions such as nitrogen and phosphorus as well as lowering carbon footprint.
We are already helping pig and poultry farmers to significantly impact these areas to deliver environmental sustainability, together with economic benefits, employing a proven strategy based on short, medium and longer term actions, each of which results in demonstrable improvements.
These figures clearly show that feed is the biggest contributor to the carbon footprint of monogastric production. Some short-term solutions to reduce emissions include feed formulation changes, such as reducing crude protein (CP) levels and including higher levels of synthetic amino acids together with sourcing lower carbon footprint raw materials. The safe reduction of CP levels in diets should be done in a balanced manner.
Undigested CP and uric acid, a key product from nitrogen (N) metabolism, are excreted into the environment and have a negative effect on ecosystems. Reduction of CP is a way to lower nitrogen emissions, leading to improved sustainability. Precise knowledge of all amino acid (AA) requirements and the bioavailability of the dietary AA supply are necessary to successfully reduce the protein content in the diet. While this knowledge is increasing, there are still some knowledge gaps around the optimal protein content and AA requirements for different diets and feeding stages. For example, information about recommendations for minimum contents of nonessential AA is limited. More research is needed to learn if we can reduce CP percentages even further without penalising growth performance.
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Mid-term solutions can focus on increasing the number of diets fed during the management cycle to more accurately match specific nutrient requirements at different stages resulting in lower emissions. Focussing on improving piglet birthweights and early life nutrition will help to develop a healthier GIT improving lifetime performance and efficiency. Another area that drives efficiency is the use of modelling tools to best match diet density and timing of the diet phases fed, specific to current farm or market situations.
Longer term solutions are focused on improved gilt rearing strategies to improve the longevity of the sow in the breeding herd and increasing longevity in layers with production up to 100 weeks while focussing on health and egg shell quality. There are many tools currently used to provide a footprint figure, developed by a variety of organisations. The choice of measurement tool will be determined by a range of factors, and all have their respective merits. Initially, it is less important which tool is used, than that a tool is used. Irrespective of which measurement tool is being used, ‘To measure is to know’, providing the starting point and benchmarks to allow actions to be implemented to instigate a downward trend in carbon footprints on farm, and allow progress to be tracked over time.
The environmental impact of the pig and poultry sector is mainly related to the production of feedstuffs and manure management. Feed is made up of many different ingredients, all of which have an environmental impact. Selecting which ingredient to use and taking account of the respective carbon footprint can help reduce the overall environmental impact of the diet. The primary objective of feed is to deliver the animal’s nutritional requirements as efficiently as possible, however, choosing how and where to source feed ingredients will affect the environmental impact of the feed.
To help producers and nutritionists formulate lower carbon footprint diets, Trouw Nutrition has developed MyFeedPrint, an easy to use tool to assess the environmental impact of their feed ingredients and formulations. It employs Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology and calculates various environmental metrics, including the carbon footprint measured in CO2 equivalent. The tool’s three modules (see Figure 2) provide data on environmental parameters, with a focus on the carbon impact, which is crucial when considering formulation changes
Module 1 • : Calculates ingredient environmental impact based on origin, transport mode, and distance to the feed mill. Users input ingredient details and transport information and export data for further use e.g. in feed formulation software.
Module 2: • Determines energy consumption in feed processing (per production line or facility average). Users input production line specifics and energy/gas consumption, and MyFeedPrint converts it into carbon impact data (kg CO2 equivalent per MT of feed).
Module 3: • Combines data from modules 1 and 2 to compute total environmental footprint of finished feed blends. Users select feed type, feed mill/production line, ingredients and inclusion rates. Reports generated include all relevant impact factors for further use e.g. client reporting.
MyFeedPrint consolidates all relevant feed data, including nutritional and environmental impact information, in one place, enabling customers to make informed decisions. By using MyFeedPrint, feed
producers can actively work towards producing more sustainable feed while considering feed costs, animal performance and health.
But it is important to remember that the lowest carbon footprint manufactured feed may not necessarily deliver the lowest overall farm carbon footprint. Emissions per kg dead weight or per kg egg are also important numbers to measure.
The Watson Swine model, Trouw Nutrition’s modelling tool, has recently been enhanced with a new link with SimaPro LCA software to allow a carbon footprint of pork to be produced.
The Watson model allows different scenarios to be compared to investigate the impact of different nutritional and management strategies. Some examples are shown in Tables 1 - 3. These demonstrate the effect of nutritional and management changes on the carbon footprint and how modelling can help explore what works best for each individual scenario.
production, would reduce emissions arising from both feed production and manure management.
Using Trouw Nutrition’s LifeStart and HealthyLife programs allows a focus on high productivity and improved efficiency. Early life nutrition and maximising growth and health status in the early stages of life are where farmers can capitalise on efficiency.
Our LifeStart program focuses on early life development and the impact of early life nutrition on animal productivity, reproductive potential and longevity. This focus sets animals up for superior lifetime performance.
Through scientific studies focused on mineral metabolism, functional proteins and nutritional requirements, Trouw Nutrition has identified the nutritional needs of chicks in the first days of life, according to the demands of their actual physiological state. Speciality diets focused on the first days result in better feeding efficiency. It also maximises the use of nutrients and generates greater production yield. This optimises feed conversion from the beginning of the chick’s life and consequent feed conversion in the entire production cycle.
Our HealthyLife programmes provide tools and services to improve gut health and aid longevity in pigs and poultry leading to improved efficiency and reducing carbon footprint. Our extensive studies into young piglet nutrition have enabled us to provide solutions to help in the replacement of therapeutic zinc oxide and reduce the use and reliance on antibiotics. This allows production efficiency to be maintained while reducing the impact on the environment by increasing overall lifetime performance.
Finally, by continuing to invest in precision nutrition approaches, we aim to meet animals’ requirements for production, health, and longevity, more precisely, delivering the right nutrients at the right amount at the right time. For example, strategies such as split feeding layers where the morning feed delivers the nutrition for energy, protein and phosphorus for egg-laying production and the afternoon feed meets the hen’s requirements for eggshell formation have been shown to have production and environmental benefits. Results from excreta composition proved that split feeding is a more sustainable feeding programme, reducing the levels of nitrogen, phosphorous and calcium excreted, through a combination of lower daily nutrient intake and better nutrient utilisation.
Matching nutrient levels closely to requirements, careful selection of raw materials and improving feed conversion are all areas that can impact carbon footprint through increased efficiency.
Increased productivity reduces environmental impact and improves economics. Improving feed efficiency, and reducing the amount of feed needed for a certain body weight gain or egg
At Trouw Nutrition we are committed to taking a lead on behalf of the industry, developing a clear sustainability approach for pig and poultry production. We will continue to develop our current tools and are committed to an innovative programme of R&D, creating new products and solutions in the fields of early life nutrition, healthy life nutrition, nutrient use efficiency and novel ingredients. By doing so we can help provide clarity for producers and the feed industry and help reduce the total footprint of the sector.
In the third in a series of articles by Trouw Nutrition GB exploring the sustainability challenges facing UK livestock production and the vital role of the supply trade in helping effect change, Ruminant Technical Development Manager Dr Liz Homer looks at the specific issues facing dairy production.
At Trouw Nutrition we believe that sustainable, lower emission farming must allow dairy farms to continue to create highly nutritious food for people by turning human inedible food into human edible proteins. Often this is achieved using marginal land which also acts as a sink for greenhouse gases through sequestration.
Achieving net zero is not a quick fix. It is a multi-year journey which must be embarked on now as it cannot wait. It is an aspiration but cannot be pushed to one side. The dairy farming industry needs to take steps now to demonstrably reduce the emissions associated with milk production.
Many factors contribute to a dairy farm’s carbon footprint (see diagram) and Trouw Nutrition is already able to contribute to improvements in many of these which account for around 80% of total emissions. These include feeding lactating cows, dry cows and youngstock, and enteric fermentation.
based on short-, medium- and longer-term actions, each of which results in demonstrable improvements.
Some short-term solutions include ration changes, making better and utilising quality forage and utilising data to make decisions. Midterm solutions can focus on fertility improvements, reducing culling rates and promoting a better, more successful transition to milking. Longer-term solutions are focused on calf and heifer rearing, reducing age at first calving and promoting increased longevity which can take a minimum of two years to be realised in the farm footprint.
Rather than being seen solely as the cause of the problem, we must remember that cows are actually an integral and important part of the solution. To feed in excess of 10 billion people we need to increase food production by 60% and decrease waste, producing food with 75% fewer emissions.
There are many tools currently used on farm to provide a footprint figure, developed by a variety of organisations. It is understandable that processors and retailers want to know the carbon footprint figure of their producers as part of their attempts to reduce their own carbon footprint. It is equally important for the feed advisors and farmers to know this figure, produce it as accurately as possible with relevant input figures, and most importantly know what to do about it to help reduce farm level emissions.
Farmers must show a downward trend in carbon footprints on farm, irrespective of which measurement tool is being used, and track progress over time.
The tools must be seen as providing more than a finite number. What matters is how they catalyse action to bring that number down over a period of years, and in such a way that it contributes to economic as well as environmental sustainability. Delivering this will require a supply chain working in unison.
In this article we will outline how we are already helping dairy farmers to significantly impact in these areas to deliver environmental sustainability, but also economic benefits. Employing a proven strategy
At Trouw Nutrition our purpose is: ‘Feeding The Future’. Sustainable agriculture is a key pillar in delivering this and protecting the future of farming. We believe we can directly contribute to reducing carbon emissions at individual dairy business level, working with our customers to deliver solutions across the supply chain. We
are committed to being proactive in delivering a holistic approach to sustainability on farm, linking environmental and economic sustainability through enhanced lifetime productivity. If our partners are to be equally proactive, we believe significant benefits will be realised.
The major challenge facing the dairy industry when developing effective strategies to reduce GHG is knowing where to focus and how to prioritise. But by using lifetime daily yield (LDY) and relating the key components of LDY to carbon footprint farmers can make a significant reduction in carbon footprint.
You can improve LDY by focussing on various management aspects including age at first calving, replacement rate, longevity to increase the lactations completed per cow, and by effective precision nutrition. Even herds already achieving top 25% performance will have scope to improve management to help work towards net zero. The first step is farmers knowing their LDY and then identifying the key steps to increase it.
Dairy farmers are being advised from all directions about how to reduce emissions and it can be a confusing area and hard to know where to start. Crucially anything that improves environmental sustainability must also support economic sustainability. Our initial dairy strategy aims to reduce the total carbon footprint per kg fat and protein corrected milk and it is important to start implementing immediately.
Lifetime daily yield is a measure of the entire milk production for each day of the cow’s life. The current NMR average LDY is 12.7kg/day but most herds will be able to improve this. It has great importance in terms of economic performance and reflects animal management, welfare, longevity and cow potential. But more than this, it is a simple measurement that directly relates to carbon footprint and emissions.
Using Trouw Nutrition programs LifeStart and HealthyLife, and solutions such as Intellibond trace minerals have shown a reduction in total carbon footprint per kg FPCM by 6%, 5% and 2%, respectively.
Beyond that, farmers and their feed advisors can focus on the diet. It is important to focus on the carbon footprint of feed which can make up approximately 30-40% of the total carbon footprint, mostly feed from lactating cows; by reviewing ingredients or where they come from, the end carbon footprint of the feed can be halved. Forage quality and the composition of the diet can also impact this. Good quality forage can reduce bought in feed and improve yield.
By improving forage quality and feeding less of the same compound for equal milk production carbon footprint can be reduced by approximately 3%, but if we can improve forage quality and reduce the footprint of bought in feed this can result in around a 15% reduction.
According to the NMR 500 Herd Report 2022, the average age at first calving is still 26.6 months, replacement rate averages 28% but peaks at 32%, with an average of 3.6 lactations per cow. If we can help farmers improve these figures to a reasonable 22 months, 20% replacement rate and in excess of five lactations per cow, we could see reductions in carbon footprint per litre of fat and protein corrected milk by approximately 20%. Other changes then come from forage quality, feed; reducing the footprint of bought in feed and maximising home-grown forage. If adopted across the supply chain, a focus on helping farmers improve LDY could deliver significant benefits.
Our LifeStart programme helps address the issue of reducing age at first calving. As well as reducing greenhouse emissions per heifer entering the herd, it can contribute to a reduction in total heifers carried, especially when combined with increased longevity.
Early life nutrition and maximising growth and health status in the early stages of life are where farmers can capitalise on efficiency. Outputs of the LifeStart programme include the products and knowledge to achieve this. Our ECM milk replacer has been formulated to achieve greater growth rates and exploit early calf development and health status to support them in later life; it has been shown to deliver benefits in terms of lactation yield, fertility and longevity.
The HealthyLife programme provides insights and approaches to increase dairy cow efficiency and longevity. The focus of the HealthyLife programme will identify the key ways to increase average lactation number and refine management to achieve an average of five lactations per cow which is shown to optimise profitability per cow and an optimum return on genetic improvement. Increasing lactations per cow is a key driver in reducing total youngstock numbers.
Although not directly correlated with GHG emissions, minerals are a source of environmental impact from dairying. Historically, low bioavailable sources have contributed to oversupply and environmental and economic waste. New improved sources such as Intellibond Hydroxy minerals combined with better knowledge mean we can be more precise, feeding closer to requirements, by increasing milk yield and diluting carbon footprint indirectly.
In addition to farm level tools which can deliver benefits to customers and allow a proactive approach on farms, we have developed tools to help at a mill level. Our Feed Print tool allows customers to monitor the carbon footprint of raw materials, compound feeds and blends precisely. But it is important to remember that the lowest carbon footprint of manufactured feeds need not necessarily deliver the lowest overall farm carbon footprint.
Using our MilkPrint tool, feed advisors will be able to bring all these factors together, calculating and demonstrating a downward trend in GHG emissions for their customers.
Finally, by continuing to invest in precision nutrition approaches. With feed and forage, directly and indirectly contributing around 3040% to the end carbon footprint, it is essential that diets are optimally formulated and correctly utilised. While compound feeds may have a high carbon footprint, it is the efficiency across the whole feeding system that counts.
Our analytical laboratory provides data on fresh grass, pre-cut grass and silages to provide a more accurate foundation for diet formulation. Our NutriOpt Dairy rationing system allows diets to be formulated to optimise rumen health and function to improve feed efficiency and better meet cows’ requirements, moving beyond standard measures of energy and protein and precisely describing what the rumen and cow actually need.
Processors and retailers are beginning to put significant pressure on producers to reduce inclusion rates or to remove soya completely. NutriOpt Dairy allows nutritionists to think out of the box to develop efficient diets using alternative ingredients successfully. It also allows more accurate prediction of the impact of changes to the diet on milk yields; to effectively reduce footprint per litre of milk.
At Trouw Nutrition we are committed to taking a lead on behalf of the industry, developing a clear dairy sustainability approach. We will continue to develop our current tools and are committed to an innovative programme of R&D, creating new products and solutions in the fields of early life nutrition, nutrient use efficiency, enteric emissions, manure emissions and novel ingredients. By doing so we can help provide clarity for dairy farmers and the feed industry and help reduce the total footprint of the sector.
