sustainability | OZOLEA

Water quality is important for dairy farmers

Marketing 19 March 2021 News

Water and dairy farming, what a delicate argument. For the third time, we will discuss about being more sustainable while carrying out our activities as dairy farmers and you won’t notice it.

We need good quality water for agricultural crops. It is an essential resource especially during flowering, seed formation or ripening. Thus, irrigation is a really strategic practice for us.

With an improved management of water use along with an optimized use of nutrients and chemicals at field level, irrigation can substantially increase crop productivity: when crops grow under irrigation they generally achieve higher yields than when grown under rainfed conditions.

Water is also the major component of the dairy cows’ diet. Water is used by the cow for nutrient transport, digestion and metabolism, waste elimination, heat balance and maintenance of ionic and water balance.

Thus, even for animal welfare and health, we must strive to keep water clean and free from chemicals by improving the global management at many levels.

Let’s depict an overview about the critical points: this may be a helpful reflection to highlight what actions need an improvement on our dairy farms.

Farming activities involves the use of chemical products such as pesticides, metal-containing inputs and veterinary medicines. Their effects on the environment and human health is due to their spread in water and uptake by aquatic organisms.

In dairy farming, metals reaching water can stem from the application of metal-containing fertilisers, sewage sludge and liquid manure. We can find cadmium in mineral phosphorous fertilisers, and copper and zinc in animal feed, thus introduced in the environment through manure spreading or with copper‐ and zinc‐containing pesticides.

Pesticides can reach the environment by contaminating soil, surface water and groundwater. Aquatic organisms are directly exposed to pesticides via surface run-off or indirectly through trophic chains.

Regarding veterinary medicines, such as antibiotics, we are gaining experience and we know that they reach agricultural soils, surface waters and groundwater directly from our animals (but also from aquaculture) or indirectly when applying manure.

Last time, we discussed how soil biodiversity, in particular microbial biodiversity, has an important role in the maintenance of water quality.

Chemicals not readily degradable will leach into surface waters and groundwaters. They can also be dispersed by wind erosion.

Since soil, with the help of various organisms, filters and buffers the abovementioned and other contaminants, rational use of chemicals according to the manufacturer’s instruction is our responsibility.

Now, what can we do to give the right boost to quality of water?

Using resources more efficiently would mean to release the pressure of chemicals on water and preserve agricultural productivity, with global benefits for us.

As dairy farmers, we can start improving manure storage and application. Organic fertilisers (manure and plant waste) can ameliorate soil structure and microbial activity. We can contribute to circular economy while spreading manure since we would recycle nutrients embedded in organic waste.

We already discussed the limits of spreading manure last time: it is a matter of good management of the dairy herd (responsible use of veterinary medicines) and application of proper quantities of manure to soil in fields.

Soil management is another key point: by avoiding soil compaction and minimising soil disturbances (for instance, through practising zero or conservation/minimum tillage), we can enhance soil fertility, reduce the use of inorganic fertilisers, improve soil water retention and reduce difficult conditions related to dry spells and droughts.

We can then adopt an integrated pest management approach. It is a matter of proper crop and livestock management for the reduction of chemical inputs against pests and diseases on farms. It has a lot to do with water.

Finally, we can think over how to restore a more natural catchment hydrology across the rural landscape and within water bodies, so as to improve nutrient recycling, pollutant breakdown and water storage.

If you want to go deeper into this topic, you can find out more here: https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/water-and-agriculture-towards-sustainable-solutions

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A more valuable manure for better crop productivity

Marketing 12 March 2021 News

This brief post is meant to be the second one of a discussion series about sustainability without mentioning this word. Our main goal is to be highly efficient and good managers on our dairy farms, before making major investments.

Last time, we had a story to tell about good manure quality. We saw how feeding calves with milk rejected from the tank due to withdrawal periods is not a good option both for calves’ health and chemical and microbiological characteristics of soils when spreading.

What about crop productivity? A proper waste management and a good quality manure can help us give the right boost to our crops.

As dairy farmers, we rely on homegrown crop production. This is a great opportunity to dispose of the waste produced by our dairy cows using it as a fertilizer to meet nutritional demand of crops. Also, it is a good opportunity for the economic optimization of our own entire dairy system.

A recent meta-analysis¹ assessed more than fifty scientific studies to compare the use of dairy manure with synthetic fertilizer.

This meta-analysis showed that, when applied at rates providing equivalent levels of plant-available nitrogen content, the effects of dairy manure on crop production, quality, and digestibility were positively equal to those achieved with synthetic fertilizer.

In particular, manure application increased soil organic matter, with a suggested overall positive impact on long term-fertility. The meta-analysis reported a high variability across the studies for soil nitrate leaching and nitrous emissions, concluding that no clear trends were evident.

An increase in soil phosphorous with a potential threat to water quality may be a risk related to dairy manure application.

The good thing is that, if applied with care to limit above impacts, dairy manure is a suitable fertilizer. It is worth noting that these impacts can vary with site-specific factors (climate, soil type, and application procedures).

Now, let’s go back to the antibiotic issue. A proper management of antibiotics in dairy cows is important for our crops, as well. Dairy manure can introduce chemicals (antibiotics) and pathogens (yes, including resistant strains from calves). How do antibiotics impact the soil, in short?

Depending on a number of different factors (physical and chemical properties of the substance, climatic factors, characteristics of the soil) persistence of antibiotic residues in the soil is determined mainly by sorption to organic particles and degradation/transformation.

The effects on soil microorganisms are the change in their enzyme activity and ability to metabolize different carbon sources and an alteration of the microbial biomass and heterogeneity of microbial communities.

Soil biodiversity plays an important role in ecological processes, and this is true especially for microorganisms, most importantly for their positive role in the maintenance of soil and water quality.

Thus, we owe our crops and our fields a good waste management and rational antibiotic use – it is beneficial for us first! Now, let’s go over good manure spreading:

never forget about local and national relevant rules on manure application to soil;
know the nature and characteristic of the soil – it helps avoid water pollution;
be sure to maintain non-spread zone near vulnerable areas – water sources, settlements, etc.;
highly fertile soils do not need high quantity of fertilizer;
consider proper weather and soil conditions for the application;
pay attention to timing and level of application on heavy or impermeable soils, areas subject to flooding and sloped grounds.

¹ Peter L. O’Brien and Jerry L. Hatfield. Dairy Manure and Synthetic Fertilizer: A Meta-Analysis of Crop Production and Environmental Quality. Agrosyst. Geosci. Environ. 2:190027 (2019) doi: 10.2134/age2019.04.0027

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Tackling antimicrobial resistance is of concern to the dairy sector: OZOLEA’s on board

Marketing 20 September 2020 News

“Antimicrobial resistance is a global crisis that threatens a century of progress in health and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals”: the “No time to wait securing the future from drug-resistant infections” report, released by the Interagency Coordination Group on Antimicrobial Resistance in April 2019, could not have been more straightforward. Antimicrobial resistance is a concrete threat for humans, animals and the environment, and this is particularly due to the fact that the drivers and impact of AMR lie in humans, terrestrial and aquatic animals, plants, food, feed and the environment. All these elements are interconnected to each other; thus, a “One Health” approach is essential to address this challenge on several aspects. Why there is no time to wait?

because every year, drug-resistant diseases already cause at least 700,000 deaths globally; if no action is taken, this figure could increase to 10 million deaths globally per year by 2050;
because the economic damage of uncontrolled antimicrobial resistance could be as dramatic as the experience we had during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis as a result of highly increased health care expenditures; impact on food and feed production, trade and livelihoods; and worsened poverty and inequality;
because if in higher-income countries a set of simple actions to address antimicrobial resistance could pay for itself, on the other hand, in lower-income countries, additional but still relatively modest investments are compellingly required.

Thus, tackling AMR must be a global effort to ensure animal and public health, food safety and environmental protection. It is an important mechanism since it limits the range of antimicrobial substances that can be used to treat infections with effectiveness. Reduced effectiveness of treatments can mean an increase in the prevalence and severity of disease in humans and animals, with consequent impact on animal welfare, human health, food safety and food security.

Although resistance is a natural mechanism, where resistance traits may be innately present in microbial populations or acquired by horizontal gene transfer, the irrational and not necessary use of antimicrobial substances is spurring the process. As a natural process, many factors (environmental stresses, chemical or other biological agents) may trigger these resistance traits, or these traits may be expressed under normal conditions. Chemical stressors include drugs, such as antibiotics. The prolonged or increased exposure to stressors leads to a selection of those microorganisms able to survive thanks to resistance genes, and this allows these microorganisms to proliferate and outcompete non-resistant microbes.

In general, antibiotics are essential “tools” for the treatment of infections, particularly those caused by bacteria. Therefore, when the moment requires the intervention with antibiotics, we cannot afford to stand still: we must act. In the dairy sector, the right approach in treating dairy cows affected by microbial infections must consider the ability of recognizing symptoms, thus, making a proper diagnosis. This implies the best advice made by a good veterinarian, but not only: the dairy farmer should be able to follow instructions related to dosage and standstill periods. Could this be enough? Not at all. When speaking of farming systems, and in general, food safety and biosecurity, preventive measures are our best performing weapons. These can really boost the effectiveness of antibiotic treatments, if strictly necessary, since they may minimize biological risks associated with microbial infections in dairy farms. As a consequence, reduced risks may correspond to a healthy and productive dairy herd, less milk waste, a safer milk for final consumers.

The global dairy position on antimicrobial resistance is pretty clear: as stated by the International Dairy Federation (IDF, which, since 1903, is a recognized international authority contributing actively to the development of science-based standards for the dairy sector), “tackling antimicrobial resistance in the dairy sector is a global effort to ensure animal and public health, and food safety”. The use of antimicrobials is only part of an animal health management programme aiming at limiting disease in animals and improve animal welfare: early detection of disease allows early intervention, thus minimizing the need of antibiotics.

Being at the forefront of the fight against antimicrobial resistance in the dairy sector, dairy farmers should not be left alone. They need professional support and advise in this great challenge we are all facing. In particular, optimal udder health in dairy cows is critical for a sustainable milk production from several point of view, including economic aspects. The adequate management of a dairy herd is fundamental also to control antibiotic use. In this context, OZOLEA, since its beginning, made a specific choice: sustainability. One of its goals is to be part of this big group of people, farmers, researchers, business operators who put lot of effort in tackling antibiotic resistance. Offering tailored solutions and alternatives, OZOLEA supports the use of rational antibiotics in dairy farms when no other solutions can be helpful and promotes any preventive actions and effective managements useful to avoid infections in dairy herds. A successful fight against antimicrobial resistance can be possible by applying comprehensive solutions: this would lead to a more sustainable, more productive, and more profitable dairy production.

The application of SafeMilk protocols, designed and promoted by OZOLEA, in combination with the use of OZOLEA’s products, have the potential to help the farmers in the fight of antibiotic resistance at a farm level. Applying SafeMilk protocols is a whole and complete farm management experience which means completely changing the approach to dairy farming. It is not a matter of charging farmers with further legal requirements or costs, since the more farmers rely on OZOLEA’s innovation, combining it with effective management in the farm, the more they will benefit in terms of less milk waste and less antibiotics purchase: thus, advantages that globally will make milk safer and more sustainable. A virtuous mechanism for the whole supply chain, up to the consumer. Find out more on SafeMilk project in this article.

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Food safety, an ever changing concept. OZOLEA’s contribution to the dairy sector with the SafeMilk protocol

Marketing 2 July 2020 News

Crises in the food sector, such as that triggered by BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy), a disease detected for the first time in 1986 in the United Kingdom and for which a link with the use of meat and bone meal in cattle feed was suspected since 1988, or the so-called dioxin crisis that hit particularly the belgian poultry sector in the spring of 1999, put the European legislator in front of the need to define a new food safety system that would focus on the spirit of collaboration not only at a business level along the entire supply chain, but also between food businesses and official authorities, as well as between Member States. With the legislative choices that followed the White Paper on food safety published in 1999, the legislator’s objectives clearly aimed at improving quality standards and strengthening control systems across the European Union from farm to consumers. With the 1999 version of the White Paper, of which principles and objectives defined at the time no longer reflect the current situation of food safety, the European Commission proposed a set of measures that would allow food security to be organized in a more coordinated and integrated way by a number of important actions: the creation of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the establishment of a system for food safety risk communication (the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed, RASFF), the definition of a legal framework that would include all operators involved in the food chain, including farms (a “from farm to fork” approach, with different requirements depending on the type of business and the phases conducted), more harmonized control systems at national level and, last but not least, proposing the construction of a dialogue with consumers and other stakeholders. All these aspects brought the legislator to define a regulation which is the reference for the European food safety system [Reg. (EC) n. 178/2002], and in subsequent years it issued a series of regulations that are part of the “hygiene package“, a group of regulations aiming at harmonizing and simplifying all legislative aspects on food hygiene, with specifications for products of animal origin intended for human consumption. An important aspect of these regulations concerns the introduction of the term responsibility of the different food business operators along the food chain, who, precisely by virtue of the obligations and requirements set with the package, still operate under a self-control system today. The concept of self-control has a wide meaning and is strictly connected to the operator’s responsibility for food hygiene and safety, where keeping the production under control from a food safety point of view is mandatory for the food business operator. This specific system not only looks at the final product, but also takes into account the complexity of the supply chains and the phases that make up each production from the beginning to the end, in which the behavior assumed by all food business operators and their staff si crucial for a safe food product. Therefore, by obliging the operator to produce and do business by following rules that imply prevention measures first of all, the scope of the legislative decision was to bring producers to the complete awareness of food safety in the company under their control. However, this is a system that brought food businesses in front of new and complex burdens, despite the flexibility allowed by the hygiene package itself.

Over the years, thanks to the revaluation approach that has always been adopted to improve the regulatory framework, the Commission has presented 5 different legislative proposals that are part of the 2013 Animal and Plant Health Package, and which today finds a concrete perspective in new regulations, such as the Reg. (UE) n. 2017/625 on official controls and n. 2016/429 (Animal Health Law). The essential aspect of these regulations is that they look at food safety taking into account the new challenges that food business operators are facing, such as antimicrobial resistance, one of the major current issues for livestock farming and related sectors. Considerandum n. 32 of Reg. (EU) no. 2016/429 perfectly clarifies the intent of the Animal Health Law with respect to antimicrobial resistance, which is of increasing concern, and therefore considering it a “threat to human or animal health“: in considerandum n. 32 it is specified that microrganisms that have become resistant should be treated “as if they were transmissible diseases, and thus covered by the scope of this Regulation“.

Crises and challenges have not stopped, and the Covid-19 pandemic is just one example. The food industry will face many difficulties in the coming years, a period in which the agri-food sector will have to focus on environmental, economic and production sustainability: aiming at the achievement of certain sustainability objectives by 2030, the Commission recently approved the Farm to Fork strategy, which is an important element at the heart of the European Green Deal. The strategy will consider both legislative and non legislative initiatives. The agri-food sector will have to put effort into the reduction of the use of pesticides, antimicrobial substances and fertilizers, increase of organic farming, improvement of animal welfare and promotion of biodiversity to contribute to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 in the EU. Furthermore, there is also the need for a more equitable distribution of value in the agri-food supply chain. It is a strategy that does not only include food safety, but it extends its perspective to other fields closely linked to each other and capable of influencing each other.

Experience, such as that we have lived with the current pandemic, is progressively showing us how food production cannot be conceptually and pragmatically separated from the environment and both human and animal health. These are strictly interconnected fields, which require a balanced approach and operators that run their business with an increased awareness, working together to build robust interactions along the chain. The goal is to have sustainable production from an economic, environmental and food safety point of view. This is a matter of social responsibility.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR, including the more specific antibiotic resistance) is one of the many hard challenges the dairy sector is facing. For many years, the use of antibiotics in dairy farms has helped farmers to tackle the damage related to infections. Resistance is a natural mechanism and resistance genes may be inherently present in microbial populations or acquired through horizontal gene transfer mechanisms. The expression of resistance may occur under normal conditions or can be triggered by exposure to environmental stress, chemicals or other biological agents. Drugs and antibiotics are an example of chemical stress factors. Prolonged or increased exposure to these factors leads to a selection of the strains that survive thanks to the resistance genes, creating the basis for their proliferation and subsequent propagation in the environment, up to humans, with frequenlty serious consequences. According to Cassini and colleagues (2019, Attributable deaths and disability-adjusted life-years caused by infections with antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the EU and the European Economic Area in 2015: a population-level modeling analysis, Elsevier), linked to the excessive and inappropriate use of antimicrobials in animal and human healthcare leads to an estimated 33,000 human deaths in the EU/EEA every year, and considerable and inevitable healthcare costs. As highlighted in the Farm to Fork strategy, the Commission will therefore take action to reduce overall EU sales of antimicrobials for farmed animals and in aquaculture by 50% by 2030. The new Regulations on veterinary medicinal products and medicated feed already provide for a wide range of measures to help achieve this objective and promote one health.

In a farm, to protect the animal health and to ensure safe milk with respect to its hygienic-sanitary characteristics, all those biosecurity measures that help prevent the introduction and limit the spread of new diseases and infections shall be adopted. These measures include prevention, prophylaxis, control and eradication actions. Antibiotics are clearly a tool to support these actions, but when their use occurs through an irrational, excessive and inconsistent with respect to the specific indications approach, the development of antibiotic resistance is a real risk. Prevention is therefore a fundamental element and tool for animal health and welfare, but also for a safe and technologically suitable milk: in fact certain antibiotic residues may lead to problems during fermentation, compromising in some cases the entire dairy transformation. Currently, very few new antibiotic substances are in the development pipeline: the risk associated to the lack of new and effective products, together with the increase of antimicrobial resistance, could bring society to conditions of a pre-antibiotic era when a simple infection could kill a child or when treating specific surgical operations could be impossible without powerful antibiotics for prophylaxis. As reported by WHO, if we do not act against antimicrobial resistance, it could cause 10 million deaths each year by 2050 and damage to the economy as catastrophic as the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. By 2030, antimicrobial resistance could force up to 24 million people into extreme poverty. While the problem of dealing with biosecurity issues still remains, on the other hand today pharmaceutical research is having difficulty finding new effective antibiotics. Alternative solutions are required, and they should be complementary to antibiotic products which should be used in a rational and effective way when actually needed.

The livestock sector is hugely involved in this situation, and for this reason it shall contribute to the process of reversing the current pattern of AMR: today, each operator may contribute to the reduction of antimicrobial resistance, allowing to avoid apocalyptic scenarios such as those we have experienced during the recent Covid-19 pandemic.

**Agrimor Formaggi** is a cheese factory in the province of Brescia that has chosen to be part of the SafeMilk protocol.

SafeMilk (or simply “LatteSicuro” in Italian), a protocol set up and promoted by OZOLEA, is part of this hard context for food safety of the dairy sector. SafeMilk started as a commercial experience, which is still possible thanks to the use of OZOLEA products, but it cannot be simplified in these terms: in fact SafeMilk is a whole and complete farm management experience. The key element for the success of the SafeMilk protocol is in the farmer’s ability to understand when to use OZOLEA products, how to use them and above all how to manage the dairy farm from beginning. Applying this protocol means for farmers to completely change the approach to dairy farming, and in this process they should not be left alone. It is not a matter of charging farmers with further legal requirements or costs, since the more farmers rely on OZOLEA’s innovation, combining it with effective management in the farm, the more they will benefit in terms of less milk waste and less antibiotics purchase: thus, advantages that globally will make milk safer and more sustainable. A virtuous mechanism for the whole supply chain, up to the consumer.

SafeMilk is a project based on four pillars:

economic sustainability: in addition to milk waste linked to the problem of infections affecting the cow, or worst, the herd, there are many other intervention points that allow a reduction of waste;
food safety: antibiotic resistance is a threat, and particularly in the livestock sector, given the close relationship between zoonosis and human health;
environmental sustainability: reducing milk waste and the impact of residues in livestock waste means acting on environmental impact parameters;
social responsibility: being aware of the problem of antibiotic resistance, the need for economic, social and environmental sustainability also means protecting the health of consumers and not betraying their trust. In particular, with SafeMilk the operators of the dairy industry are recognized for their ability to listen to the call of the world health organizations that ask to consciously reduce and use antibiotics as a form of fight against antibiotic resistance.

The peculiarity of SafeMilk is the involvement of all the operators contributing to dairy production and transformation for the construction of a model of circularity in which each operator can benefit and in which the commitment of farmers to sustainable livestock farming is rewarded.