Every year, June 1 celebrates the vital role of dairy products in global food systems, as a source of economic, nutritional and social benefits for a large part of the world's population.
World Milk Day was introduced in 2001 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to raise awareness of the importance of milk as a food and to celebrate the dairy sector and its global role.
The Italian dairy association Assolatte recalls that «for bovine milk alone, the Italian supply chain is made up of over 30,000 farms , thousands of plants that collect, process and market exceptional products every day, sought after all over the world, «a perfect system that is at the top of the Italian and European food system».
With a production value of around 5.5 billion in the agricultural phase and household spending on dairy products of around 20 billion , it is the leading sector in the Italian agri-food sector.
Looking at the last few years, the supply of national bovine milk has increased significantly and Italy, from 2015 to today, has gone from about 75% to just under 100% self-sufficiency , reaching almost substantial self-sufficiency , with a production of almost 13 million tons of deliveries . That of sheep and goat milk has been steadily around 500 thousand tons per year for some years.
Investments in sustainability
Each year a specific theme is chosen: this year it was decided to focus attention on climate change and to highlight the work done by the sector to reduce its environmental impact.According to the latest data published by Ispra , the production system has overall reduced greenhouse gas emissions by about 13% in the period 1990-2021 ; in the same period, if methane alone is considered, the observed reduction reaches 13.8%, above all thanks to the development of biogas plants which, through the anaerobic digestion of livestock manure, prevent the dispersion of methane into the atmosphere. (Source: Emiliano Sgambato, https://www.ilsole24ore.com/ )