How Fonterra is helping farmers improve their environmental footprint

File photo / Christine McKay

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Mat Cullen has only been in his new role at Fonterra for eight weeks but he has hit the ground running with the help of a great team behind him.

Cullen said he was happy for the backup, as he’s in charge of “a really big patch” - Canterbury, Tasman and Marlborough.

“It’s effectively everything north of Moeraki,” he told The Country Sport Breakfast’s, Brian Kelly.

“We’ve got a really great team here...focusing on supporting and creating value for our farmer shareholders.

“I’ve been really enjoying it - I’ve definitely been learning a lot.”

Cullen also enjoyed getting to know farmers in the region, wasting no time hitting the road to find out what makes them tick.

“I’ve been fortunate to have had a decent chunk of my first month in the role on the road. I’ve had lots of really good conversations with farmers, understanding what’s front of mind for them.”

Cullen found that compliance, production and on-farm costs, and the ability to attract staff were major concerns for farmers.

Although Cullen is new to his regional head role, he’s actually been with Fonterra since 2011, starting out as part of the Sustainable Dairy Advisor team, before heading up the co-op’s Farm Excellence Environment team.

Both positions gave him a strong background in helping farmers navigate two areas of great importance to the co-op - sustainability and the environment.

Through his career at Fonterra, Cullen has assisted farmers with compliance, and farm environment plans; along with advocating on their behalf when regulations are being reviewed or proposed by regional councils or government.

“As you can probably imagine, this has given me some really great contact with our farmer shareholders and it’s something that’s helped me in this role as well.”

The carbon footprint of New Zealand’s on-farm milk supply was already among the lowest in the world but there was still more to achieve, Cullen said.

“Whilst we come from that strong position, with efficient farm systems...we can’t rest on our laurels...it’s a really competitive, global market out there.”

Therefore, Fonterra continued to work closely with its farmers to maintain and strengthen this advantage, Cullen said.

For example, 90 per cent of the co-op’s emissions come from the farm and Fonterra recently held a series of meetings and online webinars to discuss this with its farmers.

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“We’ve been having some great conversations; it is a really complex topic.”

Although farmers faced challenges, the co-op was keen to turn these into opportunities, Cullen said.

Fonterra continues to support farmers to reduce emissions and boost environmental performance, through discussion, collaboration and research.

“We’re involved in 18 practical projects and have more than 30 trials underway at the moment.

“One you might have heard of, perhaps one of the most exciting, is the use of Asparagopsis seaweed as a supplementary feed for dairy cows, to reduce that methane production in the rumen.”

Of course, the onus wasn’t just on farmers, Cullen said.

“We’ve also got targets to reduce emissions from our manufacturing and transport operations as part of our ambition to be net zero by 2050...

“We’ve been really focused on supporting our farmers as to why we need to reduce our footprint and we’re now evolving that discussion as to how we can get there.”