DairyPost Africa Magazine_ May. 2014 | Page 35

DairyPost Africa • May 2014 35 Boosting Production and the Dairy Sustainability Framework – how do they go together? The global dairy sector faces a delicate balancing act – increasing production of safe and nutritious milk from healthy cattle while preserving natural resources and ensuring decent livelihoods across the industry. T he Dairy Sustainability Framework provides a unified, global, approach for improving the sector’s sustainability performance. All businesses want and need to grow if they are to remain competitive, and dairy farming is no different. The challenge is that we are dealing with a biological system involving complex interactions between plants and animals that are influenced heavily by the natural environment. It takes great skill by the dairy farmer to achieve balance in their farming system to maximize production from the available resources. Boosting milk production is the desire of dairy farmers globally. The Dairy Sustainability Framework (DSF) provides an innovative set of criteria that farmers and milk processors are encouraged to consider in the planning and implementation phases to ensure their resources are managed appropriately, and in turn increase the longevity of their business. What is this DSF and how was it de ٕ