Bridging the nutritional gap with sustainable dairy

THE DAIRY industry was promising in 2014, with total milk production amounting to 802 million tonnes, or a growth of +3.3% compared to the previous year, according to the International Dairy Federation (IDF). Robust milk deliveries buoyed production for other categories such as milk powders and butter. Global trade increased and represented nearly 9% of global milk production. Farm gate prices were high. However, the industry could not sustain growth in 2015. Farm gate milk prices went into a tailspin, IDF said.

(Photo © Shaffandi | Dreamstime.com) 

In 2014, global per capita dairy consumption was estimated at 110.7 kg.  Quoting data from the OECD and FAO, the IDF said consumption should grow by 13.7% by 2023. Consumption should increase all the more in developing countries, the federation said.

At the IDF World Dairy Summit 2015 held from September 20-24 in Vilnius, Lithuania, the industry focused on ensuring global nutrition security and food sustainability. The summit has attracted over 1,200 dairy producers, farmers, scientists, government officials and other sector professionals from more than 50 countries across the globe. 

Dr Jeremy Hill, the president of IDF, emphasized that the theme of this year’s summit –

Closing the Nutritional Gap with Sustainable Dairy – corresponds to one of the most important issues the world is facing today. “The nutritional gap affects both the wealthy and the poor.  It is manifest through poor nutrition in the diseases of affluence, such as obesity and diabetes, and of poverty, such as stunting. In both cases a lack of a balanced diet through inadequate advice, poor choices or limited access can have devastating effects on the individual, on the family and on society,” Dr Hill said. 

“Dairy has an important role to play in enriching the nutritional credentials of diets and is just as important in those countries with the over feeding and under nutrition (too many calories and too few nutrients) as it is in those with under feeding and under nutrition (too few calories and too few nutrients),” said Dr Hill.

“Unfortunately consumers’ understanding of nutrition and health and the role of food and diets is not as advanced as it needs to be and particularly in a world where we cannot afford to squander our food production systems, our food and our diets on naive policies and advice. We need to move away from the reductionist view of nutrition as the sum of the individual food components and consider the complex way multiple food components act within complex diets and individual lifestyles,” Dr. Hill noted.

In accordance with the main theme of the summit, the scientific program consisted of nine conferences covering the most important issues of concern to world’s dairy farmers, producers, scientists and policy makers. The IDF Nutrition and Health Conference featured the essential role dairy can have in contributing to nutritional security. It also addressed the latest research on bioactive components in dairy, and how these contribute to optimum and health.

Other conferences will cover the following topics:

− Dairy Policies and Economics

− Animal Health and Welfare

− Dairy Farming

− Dairy Science and Technology; − Marketing

− Analytic Tools

− Food Safety

− Environment  

The IDF Forum, an important feature of the IDF World Dairy Summit aimed to highlight the value and positive impact that IDF generates for the global dairy sector. This was demonstrated by a general presentation on IDF’s strategy refresh, supplemented by five presentations outlining IDF work programme strategy and the recent accomplishments and future priorities.

The Summit featured the IDF World Dairy Leaders Forum. With a theme of Fiat Lactis: Improving

Nutrition Security with Dairy, this platform of dairy leaders examined the challenge of global

nutrition security through statements of high-level panelists from the UN Committee on World Food

Security; the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO); top-ranking government officials from around the world, and leaders of the dairy sector. The Global Dairy Agenda for Action (GDAA) Reporting Session provided an update on the progress of the GDAA and the Dairy Sustainability Framework (DSF).