Edge Dairy Farmer Cooperative is committed to amplifying the voice of their members to deliver maximum value and positive outcomes for dairy farmers.
Travis Senn, Digital Communications Manager at Edge Dairy Farmer Cooperative shares more about the priorities of Edge and their sustainability work.
Edge Dairy Farmer Cooperative is currently working on creating a more transparent and trustworthy relationship between producers and processors. They are looking at the federal order system to find out ways that each order can incentivize more participation from the milk within it.
“Last year was the lowest percentage of milk pooled on the federal order system we’ve ever had and I believe it was somewhere around sixty percent,” says Senn. “It is tied for the lowest it’s ever been since as far back as they can record that so we’re really just trying to find ways to incentivize more of that milk to participate within the federal order system.”
Senn said that beyond that, they are also looking at putting contracting principles in place which includes things like equity, fairness, and standard contractual obligations that they’d like processors and producers to take part in under some of those proposed priorities.
Consumers are using their dollars to dictate not only what type of food is produced but how the food is produced. Due to this, Edge has been working with their sister organization, Farmers For Sustainable Foods, to build from the ground up sustainability efforts.
“We’ve got some really great projects that we’ve been a part of through that partnership. One example is in Lafayette County, we have a group of fifteen farms participating with stakeholders from across the food supply chain to harness their data on farms and use that to make more informed and better farming practices as they continue to move forward in their businesses,” adds Senn.
To continue that initiative, Edge put in an application the USDA Climate Smart Partnerships Program and just recently were announced as a recipient of a $50 million grant. This grant will help to scale projects even further with farmer led movements in mind.
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