Sustainability, environmental credentials need to be backed with practical action, says dairy processor

Fonterra Farm Source director Matt Watt was among farmers and scientists who addressed the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture The Future of Dairy forum.

Mr Watt said Fonterra was making good progress on its target of net zero emissions by 2050, having reduced carbon emissions by 27 per cent and cutting water consumption by 14pc since 2018.

"What we are starting to see is most people saying 'tell me what you have done already, show me evidence of what you have actually completed'," Mr Watt said.

"That's where the judgement comes in."

He said most people supported the 2050 target.

'The idea you have nice ambitions is good, but you need to be able to demonstrate you have actually made a move," he said.

"What you need to do is demonstrate a commitment to a pathway of continuous improvement," Mr Watt said.

Water efficiency had been improved by 100,000 litres of water a day at Fonterra's Wynyard plant, while energy use had been improved at its Spreyton operations.

"When we think about our production systems, and how they compare with our competitors in the northern hemisphere, we are 30pc more efficient [on emissions measures], so it is a point of relative advantage," he said.

"How do we keep ahead of that?

Mr Watt said on-farm, Fonterra was helping producers develop environmental plans, which looked at such things as nitrogen use, effluent efficiency and emissions.

It was also about to expand its Sea Forest asparagopsis seaweed trial.

The red seaweed, native to Australian coastal waters, captures carbon from the atmosphere.

Sea Forest claims animals whose diets contain just 0.2 percent of its asparagopsis supplement will significantly reduce methane reductions.

"The challenge we have is how do we validate and ensure there is no risk, whether that's food safety, product quality or production systems on farm, " Mr Watt said.

The other challenge was doing that at scale.

"Pleasingly it is going well, so we are now looking to do that on multiple farms, as we scale it up," Mr Watt said.

Read more: More funding for asparagopsis development to reduce methane emissions

Last month the Tasmanian government announced a $540,000 investment into Sea Forest

TIA senior research fellow Dr Megan Verdon, said there was a disconnect when it came to sustainable practices on farms and what the term meant in the minds of consumers.

"They don't understand the detail, they don't understand how difficult and complex dairying is - they have no idea," Dr Verdon said.

"They conflate issues, [such as] cow-calf separation and dairy beef issues.

"They consider them as one, which shows they don't understand."

Dr Verdon said consumers and the general public were stakeholders in the dairy sector and had an interest and understanding of social licence.

"We need to find some sort of way where we need to to talk to them, and see what they see as sustainable," she said.

"We need to talk to producers and find out what is actually practical and try and get some common ground.

"Some things that the consumers want may never be practical - is there something we can do that will meet them halfway, that they will find acceptable?"

She said just meeting consumer expectations might result in suggested actions which would not be taken up on farm.

"It is challenging, especially as we see a public that is more and more distant from where their food is coming from," she said.