The Dairy Roadmap launches plan to accelerate environmental progress
The report was commissioned by The Dairy Roadmap on behalf of the full dairy value chain and is described as the first independently developed plan to bring the sector together around a common route to 2030. It follows a summer marked by extreme heat, weather-related pressures and the continuing challenge of Bluetongue. Its authors say the sector’s task is increasingly to expand the use of measures that have already shown results.
National inventory figures indicate that on-farm emissions per litre of milk have declined by about 22% since 1990, while methane emissions are almost 14% lower. Industry data records a 9% reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions over the past five years. Dairy processors have reduced energy intensity by more than 30%, cut water use per kilogram of milk by over 50%, and lowered the share of waste sent to landfill from 24% to below 2%.
The report identifies four areas for faster progress: expanding the adoption of established practices; investing in infrastructure and technologies with measurable effects; preparing for emerging innovations; and developing the policy, finance, data and advisory support required to implement changes more quickly. It calls for cooperation across the supply chain, including improved knowledge transfer, skills development and more consistent data collection.
Governments are asked to recognise the sector’s progress and provide supportive policies, regulatory certainty and targeted investment. Slurry management and storage are cited as areas requiring particular attention. The report estimates that £2.4bn of investment will be needed to complete the transition. The Dairy Roadmap also says that access to finance and coordination across the industry will be necessary to secure that funding.
Bas Padberg, chair of The Dairy Roadmap, said the document brought the entire dairy value chain behind a shared pathway for the first time. He said its proposed actions, investment and partnerships were intended to support nutritious food production, rural communities and UK food security. Mr Padberg added that environmental improvement and efficient food production could operate together, noting that 99.6% of UK households had bought dairy products in the previous year.
David Homer, chair of the Sustainable Dairy Pathways Task and Finish Group, said recent heat had illustrated the risks that changing weather patterns and climate change pose to dairy farming. He said those pressures, together with Bluetongue, were affecting animal welfare, productivity and farm resilience. The report states that UK dairy farms produce about 15bn litres of milk a year, supporting more than 50,000 on-farm jobs and a further 22,500 jobs in processing. A second report, scheduled for 2027, will examine the sector’s longer-term pathway to 2050.
