Arla Foods’ Danish agri project eyes 30% carbon emission reduction and increased farmer income

01 Jul 2024 --- The Danida Green Business Partnership, under the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is funding a new dairy project that is set to benefit 10,000 Bangladeshi farmers. 

The project, titled “Green Dairy Partnership in Bangladesh — creating a sustainable and productive dairy value chain model in Southwest Bangladesh,” is pioneering a green, sustainable and commercially viable dairy business. It targets a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions while simultaneously achieving a 30% increase in income for 10,000 farmer households, with a scaling potential of 50,000.

The five-year project is also on track to ensure that 80% of the targeted farmers are female. Subsequently, the project will streamline milk collection and processing in Southwest Bangladesh while introducing more sustainably produced dairy products into the market.

This weekend, the event for the €3.4 million (US$3.655 million) project was held in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Key levers
The project model aims to assist PRAN Dairy’s business and farmers in becoming more efficient by adapting Danish expertise on sustainable dairy farming from Arla Foods and SEGES Innovation. 

The key levers are Arla’s “Big5” concept: feed efficiency, feed balance, animal robustness, manure handling and efficient land use.

The impact of these five levers is documented in Arla Foods’ extensive data gathered from their 8,000 farmer owners creating one of the world’s largest sets of externally verified data on dairy farming. 

The five levers are expected to deliver 25% of the project’s greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Process optimization, including energy, food waste and packaging, is planned to achieve an additional 5%. 

The project is also expected to deliver proof points, managed by IDRN together with the SEGES Innovation, to guide the green transformation of the dairy industry in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh, with a population of approximately 175 million people, produces 10.2 million metric tons of milk annually through 1.6 million farms across the country, with an average yield of 4.8 liters per day per cow. 

The CO2e emission is currently recorded at 3.52 kg per kg of milk. In comparison, Arla’s 8,000 farmer owners from seven different European countries produce only 1.08 kg CO2e per kg of milk.

Productive dairy value chains
Administered by Solidaridad Network Asia, the project features PRAN Dairy as the key commercial partner while partners Arla Foods, IDRN-Bangladesh Agricultural University, SEGES Innovation and The Danish Agriculture & Food Council all play key supporting roles.

The project aims to pioneer a green, sustainable and commercially viable dairy value chain in Bangladesh by implementing Denmark’s data-proven dairy expertise.At the event, Ahsan Khan Chowdhury, chairman and CEO of PRAN-RFL Group said: “We are collaborating closely with dairy farmers across different regions of Bangladesh to create a sustainable and productive dairy value chain. As part of the sustainable dairy project, we are providing training to dairy farmers to enhance productivity and working with them on feed efficiency, feed balance, animal robustness, manure handling and efficient use of land.”

Selim Reza Hasan, country manager, Solidaridad Network Asia added: “Bangladesh is going through the double graduation process. It has achieved the status of a lower-middle income country as well as entered into the process of graduating from LDC to a middle-income country status. The prosperity of Bangladesh demands safe and sustainable food. The ‘Green Dairy Partnership project’ is developing a business case for the farmers and the private sector for production and supply of quality milk, which would be carbon neutral.”

Ninna Westphael, head of Cattle at SEGES Innovation, commented: “We cannot solve the climate challenges alone. SEGES Innovation is proud to have the opportunity to share our extensive experience in capacity building within dairy production. In this way, we can contribute to reducing the global climate impact of food production while simultaneously enhancing Danish business trade opportunities with other countries.”