No more animal feed from overseas

In future, Hochland's milk suppliers will only feed their animals feed from Europe. This was agreed by representatives of the milk suppliers, Bayern MEG and Hochland at a joint meeting. The regulation applies to basic feed and concentrated feed.

The milk producers and the cheese manufacturer Hochland, based in Heimenkirch (Allgäu), are thus jointly opposing the undesirable side-effects of importing animal feed from overseas: on the one hand, valuable natural areas are being lost for the large-scale cultivation of fodder crops, especially soya, in countries like Brazil and Argentina. On the other hand, every kilogram of feed imports nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus into Europe. These nutrients are missing in the exporting countries. The originally fertile soils there become desolate, while a nutrient surplus in many European countries leads to increased nitrate levels in the groundwater. This also applies to Germany as one of the world's largest importers of soybeans and soy meal.

The avoidance of feed from overseas is a further step on the joint path of Hochland and its milk producers towards more sustainability. A clause to this effect has been included in the milk supply contracts and will come into force on 1 July 2020. The agreement is part of the "Milk for Hochland" quality programme which the family business Hochland has been implementing together with the farmers for several years. All milk suppliers undertake, among other things, to participate in the nationwide "QM Milk" programme and to produce without genetic engineering. Most recently, the milk suppliers, together with Hochland, had declared that they would refrain from using non-selective herbicides and fermentation substrates that could contain plastic particles on their meadows and fields.

Hochland is compensating the farmers for the additional effort from the "Milk for Hochland" programme with a surcharge of
1.0 ct/kg on top of the milk price.

Here you will find the press release for download.
 

Editor's note: The word "animals" in the first paragraph of the text means the dairy cows of the farmers working for Hochland. The contract farmers of Hochland Deutschland GmbH have committed themselves to feeding their dairy cows only basic feed and concentrated feed that comes from Europe.