Dairy farmers are continually driven to do what’s best for their land, cows, and family. The industry-wide goal of achieving greenhouse gas neutrality by 2050 is a challenge that Maryland & Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative Association (MDVA) not only welcomed, but also took the initiative to implement proactive steps to better their community while achieving national environmental goals.
Those forward-leaning efforts have led MDVA to achieve the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy’s 2022 Sustainability Award for Outstanding Community Impact. The award recognizes MDVA’s efforts that are centered around three clean water partnership programs: Maola Clean Water Partnership, the Giant Clean Water Partnership, and the Turkey Hill Clean Water Partnership. Furthermore, the work completed by these partnerships involved community giving campaigns at Giant grocery stores and volunteer engagement in a variety of sustainable efforts—from trash pick-ups in urban areas to tree plantings on farms.
One example is where a group of volunteers planted more than 600 trees to create a riparian forest buffer on a small farm in Pennsylvania. “Our cooperative takes pride in being a part of a strong community and looks for opportunities to strengthen the ties between our members and their neighbors through environmental stewardship, philanthropy and positive connections,” Jay Bryant, CEO of MDVA says.
MDVA is a community of more than 900 dairy farm families. With 90% of these farms located within the critical Chesapeake Bay watershed, the cooperative recognizes its responsibility to bring environmental solutions to its members and their cooperative. The association’s portfolio of sustainability work is funded through outside grants and donations. Through partnerships, more than $19 million has been raised to invest in the sustainability of MDVA’s member farms.
“This award honors the trust our farmer owners placed in us when we set out to become the sustainable choice for dairy in 2018,” Lindsay Reames, Executive Vice President for Sustainability & External Relations at MDVA says. “We have built a sustainability package with our customers and environmental partners at the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay that is truly unmatched, but undeniably replicable.”
Full Circle Win
Working alongside other dairy cooperatives towards greenhouse gas neutrality by 2050, MDVA is committed to bringing technology, resources, and expert knowledge to their farmer-owners.
“Our mission is to maximize value to our farmer owners, employees, and customers,” Kevin Satterwhite, president, MDVA says. “Value can have quite a few definitions. In this case, we’re not only adding value to our farms by implementing sustainability practices, we’re adding value to the lives of our own employees and those of our customers through partnerships and volunteer opportunities. It’s a full circle win for our cooperative.”
