Innovation aspects

MilKey project is innovative, as it will:

  • Integrate all three pillars of sustainability into the assessment of European dairy production systems
  • Enable contrasting impetus to the three pillars and allow flexible concepts for key European areas
  • Visualise barn climate for optimisation and emission control, and for animal welfare monitoring
  • Enable stakeholders, farmers and politicians to make sound, knowledge-based decisions for dairy production systems in European regions
  • Inform the consumer about dairy production systems and their consequences on economy, environment, animal welfare, animal health, rural development
  • Inform and contribute to EU policy development for the future of the CAP and regulatory framework for linking agriculture and sustainability
  • Follow a true multi-actor approach by including stakeholders and farmers as key element throughout the whole project
  • Create an easy to use and long living online platform that assists stakeholder and farmers in finding sustainable solutions in their region and that informs the consumer about the key element of DPS in their region
  • Position Europe as a world-leader in sustainable dairy production systems as a blueprint to be copied by other world regions

Overcoming the existing “science-policy gap” regarding the implementation of the existing environmental impact mitigation options in livestock production systems

Dairy production systems are major contributors of gas emissions (esp. CH4 and NH3) and must take a considerable share of the reduction obligations. A multitude of technology and management options has been developed over the last years with the aim to increase production efficiency and income and decrease negative environmental impacts. Their implementation however stays far below expectations in large parts of Europe. This is commonly termed the “science-policy gap”. The impact achieved by MilKey will be a marked increase in the degree of implementation of concepts for optimised nutrient recovery from agricultural wastes. For many years, the MilKey partners have observed a clear lack of implementation of readily available technologies in the farming community. Through their long standing and leading involvement in national and international networks and through their contact with the farming community, the members of the MilKey team have a clear picture of what is necessary to overcome the existing science-policy-gap.

Addressing the barriers against the full exploitation of options for sustainable dairy production systems

MilKey will be addressing the following barriers in its research and dissemination programme and will be a decisive step forward in overcoming them:

  • lack of knowledge on potential mitigation options, and their efficiency in the context of whole system thinking and 3-pillar sustainability assessment;
  • lack of proof and visualization of the effect of mitigation options in the barn;
  • lack of flexible concepts to take consideration of specific local conditions in the variety of key European areas;
  • lack of true multi-actor and multi-stakeholder interaction and communication;
  • lack of long-term collaboration beyond the lifetime of short research projects;
  • lack of communication and implementation measures to overcome the science-policy gap;
  • lack of case studies to proof the practicality of sustainable concepts;
  • lack of consumer information and youth education

By doing this, Milkey will milestone in improving the sustainability European dairy production systems and will have a decisive impact on GHG mitigation, better use of nitrogen, securing economic viability of dairy production systems and addressing key social impacts.

Threefold approach for addressing sustainability and GHG mitigation

MilKey will be working on (i) flexible concepts for sustainable dairy production systems in key European regions, (ii) ICT, sensor and digitisation for efficient barn climate monitoring and control, (iii) measures to increase implementation of MilKey results. This threefold approach ensures that every potential for more sustainability and GHG mitigation is addressed and exploited: technological options tailored to the specific needs of key European areas, persuasive power trough convincing show cases on case study farms, communication and education to inform about optimisation potentials, close contact with policy bodies to tailor environmental regulations for more sustainability and less GHG emissions from dairy production systems.

Previous tab Next tab

Expected impacts 1
Innovation aspects

MilKey project is innovative, as it will:

  • Integrate all three pillars of sustainability into the assessment of European dairy production systems
  • Enable contrasting impetus to the three pillars and allow flexible concepts for key European areas
  • Visualise barn climate for optimisation and emission control, and for animal welfare monitoring
  • Enable stakeholders, farmers and politicians to make sound, knowledge-based decisions for dairy production systems in European regions
  • Inform the consumer about dairy production systems and their consequences on economy, environment, animal welfare, animal health, rural development
  • Inform and contribute to EU policy development for the future of the CAP and regulatory framework for linking agriculture and sustainability
  • Follow a true multi-actor approach by including stakeholders and farmers as key element throughout the whole project
  • Create an easy to use and long living online platform that assists stakeholder and farmers in finding sustainable solutions in their region and that informs the consumer about the key element of DPS in their region
  • Position Europe as a world-leader in sustainable dairy production systems as a blueprint to be copied by other world regions

Expected impacts 2
Overcoming the existing “science-policy gap” regarding the implementation of the existing environmental impact mitigation options in livestock production systems

Dairy production systems are major contributors of gas emissions (esp. CH4 and NH3) and must take a considerable share of the reduction obligations. A multitude of technology and management options has been developed over the last years with the aim to increase production efficiency and income and decrease negative environmental impacts. Their implementation however stays far below expectations in large parts of Europe. This is commonly termed the “science-policy gap”. The impact achieved by MilKey will be a marked increase in the degree of implementation of concepts for optimised nutrient recovery from agricultural wastes. For many years, the MilKey partners have observed a clear lack of implementation of readily available technologies in the farming community. Through their long standing and leading involvement in national and international networks and through their contact with the farming community, the members of the MilKey team have a clear picture of what is necessary to overcome the existing science-policy-gap.

Expected impacts 3
Addressing the barriers against the full exploitation of options for sustainable dairy production systems/h3>

MilKey will be addressing the following barriers in its research and dissemination programme and will be a decisive step forward in overcoming them:

  • lack of knowledge on potential mitigation options, and their efficiency in the context of whole system thinking and 3-pillar sustainability assessment;
  • lack of proof and visualization of the effect of mitigation options in the barn;
  • lack of flexible concepts to take consideration of specific local conditions in the variety of key European areas;
  • lack of true multi-actor and multi-stakeholder interaction and communication;
  • lack of long-term collaboration beyond the lifetime of short research projects;
  • lack of communication and implementation measures to overcome the science-policy gap;
  • lack of case studies to proof the practicality of sustainable concepts;
  • lack of consumer information and youth education

By doing this, Milkey will milestone in improving the sustainability European dairy production systems and will have a decisive impact on GHG mitigation, better use of nitrogen, securing economic viability of dairy production systems and addressing key social impacts.

Expected impacts 4
Threefold approach for addressing sustainability and GHG mitigation

MilKey will be working on (i) flexible concepts for sustainable dairy production systems in key European regions, (ii) ICT, sensor and digitisation for efficient barn climate monitoring and control, (iii) measures to increase implementation of MilKey results. This threefold approach ensures that every potential for more sustainability and GHG mitigation is addressed and exploited: technological options tailored to the specific needs of key European areas, persuasive power trough convincing show cases on case study farms, communication and education to inform about optimisation potentials, close contact with policy bodies to tailor environmental regulations for more sustainability and less GHG emissions from dairy production systems.

MilKey will establish a unified analytical protocol to facilitate comparison and synthesis of GHG emission mitigation and sustainability assessments across the DPS case studies and key European regions.

Dissemination and exploitation of results

Dissemination of results will use a multi-stakeholder approach and will include farmers, industry, policymakers, consumers, national inventory compliers (from partner countries and beyond) and transnational institutions, such as FAO, IPCC, TFRN, and UNECE.

MilKey partners have leading roles in these organisations.By liaising with well-established dissemination partners such as e.g. the policy bodies included in MilKey (TFRN, UNECE, FAO, GRA, IPCC and others), dissemination is amplified and multiplied.

Communication activities

The MilKey communication strategy is built upon the guidelines on “Communicating EU Research and Innovation”. Assistance through professional communicators is guaranteed by involving the public relations offices of the project partners. They will assist with the drafting of press releases, graphic design, and maintenance of the website. Continuity is ensured through the maintenance of the website, data repository and MilKey platform also after the project lifetime.

MilKey will consider implementation of feedback loops back to the European Commission that can help with amplifying the message, for example by notifying an event. Communication aims of the project have been specified with respect to intended impact and expected reaction or change from the target audience. Each audience will be approached by a distinct strategy using targeted messages, means and language.