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6. Environment > Towards Sustainable Agriculture When you think about it, Ben & Jerry’s simply would not be Ben & Jerry’s if it weren’t for the family farms supplying the high quality dairy ingredients we depend on. That’s why we have long been committed to supporting sustainable practices in the dairy industry. It’s our belief that sustainable agriculture is about making continuous improvements to existing farming practices in order to help make them more environmentally sound, socially just and economically viable. Dairy Stewardship Alliance (Vermont, USA) The Dairy Stewardship Alliance (DSA) has been a collaborative effort between Ben & Jerry’s, the University of Vermont’s Center for Sustainable Agriculture, the
As a first step in 2003, we developed a comprehensive set of sustainability indicators for dairy farming, along with a set of Educational Modules that farmers could use to self-assess their farm management practices and performance over time. The Toolkit was officially launched in late 2004 with a group of farmer-members of the St. Albans Coop. Participating farmers used the toolkit to evaluate their practices, compare their results to other farms, and learn how to improve their results. Since that time, we have grown the alliance to include more farmers, and we are currently in the middle of a project to transform the toolkit into an interactive online resource. We anticipate we will complete this work by the end of 2008, one year later than originally planned, due to limited staffing and financial resources. To date the DSA has 25 participating farms with a goal of 52 by the end of 2008. Currently more than half of this group have finished the toolkit, identified two specific areas to improve on, and committed to make the indicated changes. Once these changes have been completed each farmer will reassess their operation and determine if their overall score has changed. Going forward, we will work with these farmers on continuous improvement. In 2007 the Dairy Stewardship Alliance had reached a point where enough data from the previous years had been collected that we could analyze it more broadly. The results of this analysis show that DSA participating farmers are making changes on their farms that have positive outcomes to overall farm performance, particularly in the areas of animal husbandry, soil health and water management. One of the highlights of the 2007 was the second year of the farmer exchange program with our Dutch farmer counterparts in the Netherlands that began in 2006. In October, thirteen farmers who are participating in DSA and their families were provided the opportunity to travel to the Netherlands. Together with the DSA advisory team, these farmers spent a week visiting Caring Dairy farms, connecting with farmers and learning about Dutch farming practices. The highlight of the week was the three days spent with host families on their farms. We made sure to match up the same Dutch and U.S. farmers from our 2006 Farmer Exchange, so the trip rekindled these growing friendships as well. The US farmers came home with a better understanding of a wide range of practices, including the potential for wind turbines and robotic milking machines on the farm. Read The Dairy Stewardship Alliance Toolkit in full: (downloadable PDF files)
Caring Dairy (The Netherlands)
Caring Dairy helps farmers keep an eye on eleven indicators of sustainable dairy farming related to soil fertility and health, soil loss, nutrients, pest management, biodiversity, farm economics/value chain, energy, water, social/human factors, impact on local economy and animal welfare. 2007 was an exciting year for Caring Dairy,
We’re pleased that the impact of Caring Dairy is rippling outward from our initial group of participating farmers to CONO’s 550 dairy farmers with an ever-increasing impact on the sector as a whole. We continue active sharing of outcomes from Caring Dairy in the dairy industry, including in the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform (SAI) Working Group on Dairy, a food sector initiative with over twenty global food companies. You can learn more about the Caring Dairy program and listen to its participating farmers at www.benjerry.co.uk/caringdairy. |
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Our commitment to this ideal has taken on various forms over the years. In 2007, we continued our involvement in two ongoing projects in this area, one in Vermont and one in the 
In the same spirit as the Dairy Stewardship Alliance, Ben & Jerry’s launched Caring Dairy in 2003, a collaborative project that works directly with dairy farmers in the Netherlands on continuous improvement of the environmental, social, and economic performance of their operations. Our partners in this effort include Unilever’s Sustainable Agriculture Initiative, our milk supplier, local farmers and Wageningen University.
as we started a partnership with CONO cheesemaker, a local cooperative with 550 dairy farmer members, producing a premium cheese under the Beemster brand. Under this arrangement, CONO will be Ben & Jerry’s sole dairy supplier for Europe, while all CONO farmers will use the Caring Dairy toolkit to drive continuous improvement towards sustainable practices. The visible symbol of this exciting partnership will be a Caring Dairy logo that will grace all Ben & Jerry’s products in Europe. 
The partnership with CONO has allowed Caring Dairy to scale up from 11 to 550 farmers in one ambitious swoop. We launched the new relationship with a festive event in October, where CONO farmers and their families — 1300 people in all — were introduced in a lighthearted way to the goals of Caring Dairy and the added value it will bring to farmers. By distinguishing CONO products from competitors, the Caring Dairy program will result in a €1.00/100 kg price premium paid to farmers for their participation. 
Co-founder Jerry Greenfield also helped us get off to a great start with the CONO partnership by cheerfully agreeing to be interviewed by two cows on the history of the project.