Arla FarmAhead™ Technology aims to speed up climate action

Ambitious climate strategies are essential in the global dairy industry. At Arla Foods, farmer owners are using data-driven tools to better understand emissions at farm level and accelerate climate action across the dairy value chain.

FarmAhead™ Technology is Arla’s framework for supporting sustainability improvements on farm. It helps farmer owners measure their climate impact, identify improvement areas and take action to reduce emissions from milk production. Arla has set a target to reduce CO₂e emissions from milk and whey by 30.3% by 2030, compared to a 2020 baseline.

A central part of the framework is FarmAhead™ Check, a tool developed specifically for Arla’s cooperative farmer owners. The tool collects more than 200 data points from each farm, covering areas such as feed, energy use, herd data, manure handling and other farm practices. The data is verified and used to calculate a farm-specific carbon footprint per kg of milk, while also providing insights into where emissions come from and how they can be reduced most effectively.

FarmAhead™ Check covers 99% of Arla’s milk pool, making it one of the world’s largest externally validated datasets on dairy production. The insights support farmer owners in seven Northern European countries and help identify the main drivers of differences between lower- and higher-emitting farms.

ARLA FARMER OWNERS HAVE REDUCED ABSOLUTE EMISSIONS FROM RAW MILK PRODUCTION BY 1.2 MILLION TONNES OF CO₂e SINCE 2020

FarmAhead™ Incentive builds on this data-driven approach by rewarding farmers for sustainability actions. Farmers receive 1 eurocent per kg of milk for submitting FarmAhead^™ Check data, while the full incentive model can provide up to 3 eurocents per kg of milk.

The incentive model is based on a point system covering areas such as feed efficiency, fertiliser and protein efficiency, land use, animal robustness, manure handling, biodiversity, carbon farming, sustainable feed and renewable electricity. The more actions a farmer takes to improve climate and nature performance, the more points can be collected.

Farmer owners have reduced absolute emissions from raw milk production by 1.2 million tonnes of CO₂e compared with the company’s emissions baseline. Farmers have also increased their average FarmAhead™ Incentive score by six points since the model’s introduction.

By combining farm-level data, verified climate calculations and financial incentives, Arla’s FarmAhead™ Technology supports a more transparent and action-oriented approach to reducing emissions in dairy production.