Agrifirm's search for residual flows

The cabinet and the House of Representatives want a rapid transition from linear to circular agriculture. There is little doubt in the sector about its usefulness and necessity. In fact, a lot of work is already being done in this area: the Kringloopwijzer is proof of this.

An important feature of circular agriculture is the use of residual flows. This is also apparent from the recent appeared Agrifirm's 2017 sustainability report. An excellent definition of circular agriculture can be found on page 35: "With circular agriculture, the raw materials and products remain in the cycle for as long and as high-quality as possible through full utilization of raw materials, high-quality use of biomass and recycling of residual flows."

Residual flows
This subject has also been discussed in Agrifirm's previous sustainability reports. No wonder, because the animal feed industry traditionally likes to use residual flows (for cost reasons). It also serves a great social interest, which is expressed, among other things, in the level of the CO2 footprint of the animal feed produced. The more residual flows that are processed in the animal feed, the lower the CO2 footprint.

Agrifirm has achieved some remarkable results in this respect for the dairy feed types. The share of residual flows in feed for dairy cattle has increased from 58,3% (2016) to 71,1% (2017). It still concerns factories in Belgium and Poland, but the tone has been set. You can read more about this on page 37 of the aforementioned annual report.

Paid Sustainability
The current generation of dairy farmers in the Netherlands is faced with the challenge of adding sustainability to the renowned high productivity of their business operations. Customers demand and want to pay for it. That has become clear recently. Entrepreneurs like to take action.

The most concrete measure of sustainability is currently the CO2 footprint per kilo of milk. It can be expected that this will be used to determine the level of remuneration for the sustainability efforts of dairy farmers.

About 25% of the CO2 footprint of milk is determined by the use of concentrates, as has been calculated by Wageningen Economic Research. Concentrated feed with a low CO2 footprint is ticking and the dairy farmer will therefore be happy to make use of it. Agrifirm therefore has something to offer its members and customers. With green, more money!

Herre Bartlema

Herre Bartlema is chairman of the NCOK: Netherlands Center for the Development of Circular Precision Agriculture. The aim: to promote the application of practical precision farming techniques to contribute to a clean sector.

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