LIC Sustainability Report

Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC) has published its first Sustainability Report.

In the report, LIC Chairman Murray King says unlike other companies that can only make a difference through the business choices they make, LIC is able to do some of the heavy lifting on sustainability for the industry too.

In addition to meeting LIC’s annual reporting requirements as a member of the Sustainable Business Council, the report demonstrates how LIC is responding to sustainability challenges facing New Zealand dairy farmers and the critical role it plays in helping them meet their own sustainability goals.

One of the primary ways LIC assists farmers to reduce their environmental footprint is breeding high genetic merit bulls for artificial breeding and supporting farmers to accelerate their herds’ genetic gain. High genetic merit animals are more environmentally efficient because they partition a greater proportion of their feed eaten into milksolids and less into waste.

Between 1990 to 2020, the genetic improvement in LIC’s Premier Sires bull team delivered on-farm a 13% reduction in enteric methane emitted and 16% less urinary nitrogen per kilogram of milksolid produced (refer to page 15 of the report).

This month LIC also pledged its support for Pathways to Dairy Net Zero, a new global initiative which aims to accelerate climate change action and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across the dairy sector. A number of leading global organisations, including 11 of the 20 largest dairy companies in the world, have also declared their support for the effort.

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