Petschar stresses the value of environmental standards
“Who buys high quality Austrian dairy products has the guarantee that he buys quality products with the best environmental standards,” claims the president of the Association of Austrian Milk Producers (VÖM), Helmut Petschar, as he refers to the result of an international comparative study by the European Joint Research Center.
The VÖM president uses the opportunity to ask the Austrian consumers to pay attention to domestic quality when purchasing.
CO2 and methane are the most problematic greenhouse gases in the dairy production. They arise especially in the natural digestive process of cattle and in the fertilisation.
In Austria, all agriculture causes about 10% of greenhouse gas emissions – of which the dairy industry contributes with 5%, the energy industry is responsible for 44%, the traffic about 30% and private households 10%.
The Austrian dairy industry has reduced its emissions in recent years by 15%. Main reasons for the good climate protection values of the Austrian milk is the natural way of milk production in Austria: high grassland content, no extreme breeding practices and thus a longer life of the cows, no use of palm oil products or soy from overseas, no genetic engineering, manageable structures in agriculture and regional processing as well as the EU wide highest organic share.
“In addition to the exemplary production on the farms follows the dairies for climate protection: renewable energy, energy from biomass, photovoltaic systems, sustainable packaging solutions and other measures. Projects have already created the first climate-neutral dairies in Austria,” says Petschar.