Innovative Kiwi tech, digital farming and native plantings feature in Nestlé and Synlait's renewed partnership.
Nearly 40 Canterbury dairy farmers are working with their processor Synlait and the world’s largest food producer Nestlé to reduce emissions and improve on-farm biodiversity.
The three-way partnership’s next phase will deepen the use of digital tools to uplift farm efficiency, see up to 90,000 native trees and plants planted and enable the early deployment of EcoPond, a Canterbury innovation that cuts methane emissions from dairy farms’ effluent ponds by over 90 percent.
Synlait’s Chief Revenue Officer Hamish Yates said the partnership’s growth is a great example of how businesses can work together to make a real difference to the planet.
“Synlait has a history of pioneering sustainability. This partnership means we, and our farmers, will maintain our leadership position. EcoPond is a scientifically proven ‘no brainer’, and the efficiency levers are impressive, showing farmers can reduce emissions while maintaining and even improving profitability," said Yates.
“It has been eye-opening to see the passion Nestlé, as one of the world’s largest companies, has for helping New Zealand farmers reduce their emissions. It’s a values-led approach that benefits everyone involved and the environment.”
The partnership opened commercial opportunities for Synlait to work with Nestlé and is enabling farmers to improve their environmental performance. It will also help both companies meet their emissions targets.
Nestlé aims to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 at the latest and recognises the importance of reducing dairy-sector emissions to achieve this.
Nestlé Global Head of Sustainability Nutrition, Katja Seidenschnur, said that partnerships of this kind are instrumental for all parties to reach their greenhouse gas emission targets.
“Dairy sits at the heart of Nestlé’s business and at the heart of our climate challenge. Addressing emissions at scale requires partnership across the value chain and on farm," said Seidenschnur.
"That’s why we’re working closely with our dairy suppliers and farmers as part of our Nestlé Dairy Plan to turn ambition into action, through practical approaches to climate, methane and regenerative agriculture.”
Delivering a tangible difference for Canterbury
The Synlait farms involved in the partnership are based in Canterbury and will select from a range of emissions mitigation options to implement those that best suit their farm’s system.
Options include:
- EcoPond is a simple and effective treatment service that reduces methane emissions from effluent ponds by over 90 percent while improving a pond’s performance.
- Farm efficiency projects – including the use of a tool that creates a digital twin of their farm and benchmarks its sustainability, profitability and production against others. The tool can also model the impact of doing things differently on a farm, or what happens when new technology is adopted.
- Native tree plantings, with up to a total of 18,500 native trees and plants to be planted on participating farms each year, for the next five years, as part of Synlait’s Whakapuāwai programme, which has distributed more than 327,000 native plants since 2019.
- Becoming part of an on-farm biodiversity pilot project to demonstrate what’s possible in a dairy farming environment.
- The onboarding of new emissions-reducing technologies as they become available.
Around 30 farms have opted for EcoPond and are among the first in the country to be treated.
EcoPond Director Elliot Mercer said Synlait and Nestlé’s support has been crucial to enabling the development and early deployment of the technology.
“This backing helped move the latest version of EcoPond from a prototype into something that is now cutting emissions on New Zealand farms today. We are working toward EcoPond being formally recognised as an approved methane reducing tool by the government’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory, which would be a significant milestone.”
Synlait’s Hamish Yates said EcoPond is already making a difference.
“That is one of the reasons we are excited about this technology, its effect is instant. So far, we’ve treated around 30 ponds on Synlait farms, mitigating more than 2,700 tonnes of CO2-equivalent," added Yates.
"To put that in perspective, it’s the same as 1,250 cars being taken off the road in under a year. It’s a game-changer and only the first of many great things to come as a result of this partnership."
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