Innovation: Danone
Another Special Recognition Award was handed out at the virtual event – this time to Danone, within the Innovation category.
Specifically, the award was granted for Danone’s global assessment tool for dairy cow welfare. The digital tool, which can be used on any tablet, aims to help farmers phase out inappropriate practices, including tail docking and dehorning.
As CIWF explained, the tool creates a SMART Action plant for improvement based on key inputs and welfare outcome measures, such as early colostrum feeding to calves, lameness, mastitis, and body condition score, following a two-hour assessment conducted by the farmer.
By the end of 2020, more than 400,000 dairy cows and 350,000 replacement young stock has been assessed using the tool. The dairy giant has also shared the tool with other businesses and partners around the world.
“Danone’s new digital tool provides direct on-farm action plans, tailored to each farm’s specific needs which are compared against a universal benchmark,” explained CIWF’s Dr Jones. “It has the potential to monitor and improve welfare on a global scale thanks to Danone’s willingness to share it with other companies.”
Image source: GettyImages/Diane Kuhl
