Towards smart dairy nutrition: Improving sustainability and economics of dairy production

Abstract

To satisfy increasing food and nutrient supply requirements for our growing future human population, farmers and staple food producers carry vital responsibilities. Especially farmers with ruminant livestock like dairy cows transform otherwise for human consumption unsuitable fibre into highly nutritious milk and meat. Nevertheless, dairy farmers are challenged increasingly by the consequences of global warming. Economic risks like feed supply and volatile commodity prices need to be balanced, also taking into account the increasing environmental awareness of end-customers. Focusing just on emissions, dairy production is contributing an essential part of the total carbon footprint emitted by the agricultural sector. Since rumen degradability of feed was identified by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations as one of the most influential parameters in reducing the carbon footprint of dairy farming, the desire to exploit leverage potential for efficiency increases can be considered exceptionally high. Although the positive effects of improved feed, in other words, neutral detergent fibre rumen degradability for dairy farming are well understood, detailed information on the correct management to obtain well digestible feed sources is still missing. Using the smart dairy nutrition ration formulation concept, applying readily on-farm available digitized data and management information the objectives of this study were: 1) to assess the influential parameters which govern neutral detergent fibre rumen degradability of corn silage, using a set of 584 corn silages from multiple years, and 2) to evaluate within an integrated dairy production set up the economic and ecological improvement potential by feeding a subset of 28 different corn silages, including detailed variety information. Results show that the neutral detergent fibre rumen degradability is primarily governed by variety choice and can be four times more important than the correct harvest stage decision. By feeding corn silage varieties with high neutral detergent fibre rumen degradability, monetary income could be increased by ~10% while simultaneously reducing manure accumulation.

Potentials to breed for improved fibre digestibility in temperate Czech maize (Zea mays L.) germplasm

“…Since the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations also stated fodder digestibility to be an influential critical parameter in improving the economic and ecological sustainability of dairy farming, focusing on higher digestible silage maize cultivars may supply substantial leverage potential and reductions in dairy sector greenhouse gas emissions. In the light of the proposed global increase in consumption of dairy products, future maize silage cultivars, improved for their cell wall digestibility, may contribute substantially towards more sustainable farming practices (Schönleben et al 2020). The presented results, applying the uNDF methodology, are, therefore, highly encouraging and good news for the environment, plant breeders, end-customers, and ruminant livestock farmers, in the combined quest towards modern maize silage cultivar development and sustainable farming.…”

Smart Pig Nutrition: Effect of Piglet Weaning Nutrition Strategy on Their Growth Ability, Survival and Economics

“…Therefore within the presented trial, a return of investment of 2:1 to the advantage of the porridge strategy can be stated. With the nowadays available cup systems, group farrowing and smart herd management approaches, the edge of a porridge strategy may be further supported, due to an additional reduction of the associated workload (Mesarec et al, 2020;Schönleben et al, 2020). The obtained results are, therefore, highly encouraging towards improving economic, as well as biological outcomes in professional piglet production.…”

Differences between chemical analysis and portable near-infrared reflectance spectrometry in maize hybrids

“…Models are used to estimate potential milk production (Oba and Allen 1999;Khan et al 2007;Schonleben et al 2020) because feeding tests to evaluate differences in animal performance are demanding and expensive (Bal et al 2000). The most widely used program in the world today is Milk 2006 (Shaver 2006), which estimates milk production per hectare and per tonne of DM.…”