Visits to farms and to the Innovation centre for organic farming:

The trip started with a visit to the Innovation centre for organic farming, where Jouni and Marjo met two experts specialised in prolonged cow-calf contact. The experts, Iben Alber Christiansen and Maja Bertelsen, talked about their research and the benefits and challenges of prolonged cow-calf contact. Their research has shown that prolonged cow-calf contact can contribute to the welfare and growth of calves. They told that the challenges in prolonged cow-calf contact are lack of space and challenges of monitoring calves welfare.

After visiting the Innovation centre for organic farming, Jouni and Marjo visited two dairy farms. The first farm, Voldsted A/S, was already known from 2014, when a working time measurement was carried out on the farm. It was great to see how the farm has developed over the years! The number of milking robots had been increased from four to six and a separate building had been built for dry cows and calving cows. The new building has made it possible to divide the calving cows into weekly groups. The second farm visit was an organic dairy farm  Ny Dyrvig. This farm specialised in prolongend cow-calf contact and had innovative solutions such as combining a damn and foster cow.

Challenges and opportunities for Danish farms:

Danish farms have recently faced challenges with the weather conditions. The spring was rainy, which delayed sowing and silage harvesting. In addition, Denmark's new carbon tax puts pressure on farms to reduce carbon emissions. However, many farms are optimistic about this and see it as an opportunity to further improve their operations. The carbon tax, which will come into force in 2030, will affect dairy farms, meat production, pigs and sheep.

Lessons learned from the visits and plans for the future:

The trip provided valuable insights and ideas that we can use in our own projects. Especially in prolonged cow-calf contact, we gained a lot of new knowledge that we can apply in future projects. The visit to Denmark showed once again that international cooperation and exchange of information are important for the development of dairy farms. In the future, we will continue our cooperation with Danish experts and develop prolonged cow-calf contact practices in Finland. The trip was successful and rewarding, and we are excited about future projects and opportunities for cooperation.