Balancing Nutrition and Sustainability

Brian Lindsay operates a global consultancy business bridging the gap between food companies and farming in a quest for mutually beneficial approaches to achieving sustainable food systems. Brian is Director for the Dairy Sustainability Framework, which covers 30% of global milk production and allows members to adapt their sustainability programs to suit local needs and priorities. Brian Lindsay is also Global Dairy Platform’s Lead for Sustainability.  This involves reviewing new science, responding to global food industry and political consultations. Brian is also currently a Board member of the Dairy Asia initiative.  Dairy Asia brings 14 Asian Countries together to collaborate on sustainable dairy production challenges. Brian is currently coordinating several global and sectoral initiatives on methane quantification, Carbon Sequestration, and dairy sector carbon footprinting. Brian is regularly asked to speak and facilitate industry meetings and conferences on sustainability and livestock agriculture.

Dr. Jan Dijkstra is a professor and researcher at the Wageningen University, The Netherlands and an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Animal and Poultry Science, University of Guelph, Canada. Prof Dijkstra’s primary research interest is in modelling digestive and metabolic processes in farm animals, particularly dairy cattle, focusing mainly on challenges in dairy cattle production aiming for healthy animals producing milk at low environmental costs and improving financial profit. He has been involved in the development, dynamic mechanistic models suitable for application in the dairy industry or suitable in support of experimental research programs as research models. Jan’s research has shown the importance of the interplay between modelling and experimental research. In the past decade he is increasingly involved and lead projects on experimental research into nutritional physiology of dairy cattle. In the past 5 years, he has attracted (as leader or co-leader) major grants totaling over €10 million, involving 10 PhD students and 2 postdoctoral researchers.