Deere-DeLaval launches dairy sustainability tool

Tractor giant Deere & Co. unveiled a new digital tool for dairy farmers to manage sustainability efforts across their operations.

The Milk Sustainability Center, created in partnership with dairy farm machinery company DeLaval, allows farmers to monitor their nutrient use efficiency. The tool compares the amount of milk produced to the quantity of nutrients used and integrates data on crop and animal performance to measure the carbon impact across the farm, herd and field.

“The tool helps identify where farmers can save money and improve their sustainability efforts by highlighting nutrient losses and offering recommendations for reduction,” Lars Bergmann, executive vice president of digital service at DeLaval, said in a statement.

Deere and DeLaval developed the Milk Sustainability Center as part of a joint effort announced last September. The tool is initially available for free to a select number of dairy farmers in the United States, Netherlands and Germany, with plans to expand to other European countries in the future.

John Deere and DeLaval joins efforts to create the Milk Sustainability Center (MSC), a digital eco-system to help dairy farmers improve the efficiency and sustainability of their operations. The eco-system will be open for partners to join, with the objective of providing farmers with data needed for a holistic view of the dairy operations.

The MSC will also provide data to allow dairy farmers to compare their performance to other dairy operations and identify key areas for improvement. MSC aims to serve dairy farmers independent of farm machinery brands and herd management software.

“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,” says 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.”

After farmer authorization, data from DeLaval Plus and John Deere Operations Center will be automatically pulled into the Milk Sustainability Center. Manual data input will be reduced, ensuring high data quality, and ultimately helping an entire farm system – fields, cows, employees, advisors, machines, and other assets – work efficiently together.

MSC is cloud-based for desktop or mobile devices, built and powered by Dairy Data Warehouse BV (DDW), a Dutch based company in operation for the last 10 years offering data solutions for sustainable dairy. Dairy farmers, consultants, dealers, and other partners can also be invited to view their data in MSC.

“Dairy farmers are seeking ways to decrease their environmental footprint and improve sustainability,” says Lars Bergmann, Executive Vice President Digital Services at DeLaval. “The Milk Sustainability Center will help dairy farmers achieve their goals and address the growing needs of dairy processors, retailers, government, and ultimately, consumers​.”

The launch of the John Deere-DeLaval partnership will be a key focus in the John Deere booth at the AGRITECHNICA 2023 trade show, November 12-18, in Hanover, Germany.

The initial version of MSC will be released in Summer 2024 in North America and selected European Union countries and will be free of charge. A premium version with extended capabilities will be released at a later date.

About John Deere
Deere & Company (www.JohnDeere.com) is a global leader in the delivery of agricultural, construction, and forestry equipment. We help our customers push the boundaries of what’s possible in ways that are more productive and sustainable to help life leap forward. Our technology-enabled products including John Deere Autonomous 8R Tractor, See & Spray™, and E-Power Backhoe are just some of the ways we help meet the world’s increasing need for food, shelter, and infrastructure. Deere & Company also provides financial services through John Deere Financial.