| | FEBRUARY 20239CIOReviewemissions and, more importantly how they can take action to reduce these emissions. This is an extremely powerful tool to support our farmers, commercialise our sustainability journey and reassure consumers that our ambitious targets are backed by concrete actions. Finding the Right Solutions is Hard WorkWhile we have committed to becoming a net zero business by 2050, we know that some of the solutions that will help us get there are in development, haven't yet come to farm or in fact haven't yet even been invented. So, alongside improving our current practices, there is also a task of us as an industry to identify and implement new technology and innovations. Luckily, this is an area of innovation which is alive with activity. The agriculture industry is brimming with companies working to come up with products and solutions improving sustainability. Many of these will claim to have the one golden solution, but the truth is that farming is complex and that all farms are different. We will need a wide range of actions and innovations to get us to our destination.Here at Arla, we need to play our part in helping the industry to stay on top of the latest developments, scope out the right solutions to try out and then, most importantly, set up the right environment to test it in, securing accurate data to build decisions on. That's why we at Arla Foods are creating Innovation Farms in all our core markets where we can control the test setup and mimic real-life scenarios before endorsing or recommending innovations on a larger scale. This allows us to build better business cases and make sure our farmers work with new technology and innovations that actually have an impact. This is another benefit of the cooperative model, meaning individual farmers don't need to spend time and money on efforts that don't make a difference.Farmers to the Front, PleaseHaving spent all my working career within agriculture, operating from farm through to UK retail, I have seen the large growth in interest in how our food is produced. Many people have an opinion but few outside of agriculture have a clear, first-hand understanding of exactly how today's industry operates. At Arla we see this as a real opportunity and, work hard to put our farmers front and centre of everything we do. As a cooperative our strength is our democratic process and the short distance between barn and board room. Our farmers are the real experts and we listen and trust them to play a pivotal role in decision making and the future of the business. They are also the best ambassadors for our business. They are out in the field studying everything from biodiversity to soil health and working with biological processes and farm machinery. The agriculture industry could be better at harnessing that knowledge and putting it in front of its decision-making, branding and communication, teaching all of our stakeholders about the challenges and importance of farming. We don't need to convince farmers to transform and deliver results: they are already doing that. What's important is working together as one collaborative industry offering support and the right framework of data-driven solutions that can work across all different farm types. After all, data will provide the information we need to meet the sustainability challenge, but we will get nowhere without our farmers. Alongside improving our current practices, there is also a task of us as an industry to identify and implement new technology and innovations
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