Annual Report 2018-2019

Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC) President, Pierre Lampron, and Chief Executive Officer Jacques Lefebvre, present their personnal highlights from the past year. 

The Blue Cow Effect

DFC’s national campaign promoting the image and reputation of Canadian dairy products was launched in January 2019 and ran for six weeks targeting millennials. Millennials, now aged 23 to 38, have become the largest demographic in Canada and DFC, through its marketing activities, is working dilligently to ensure they can appreciate the unique qualities of dairy products and dairy production.

Awareness of the Blue Cow logo has reached an all-time high since its introduction. Over four in five Canadians, or roughly 20 million people, are now aware of the Quality Milk logo.

DFC 2.0 The Reengineering of DFC

Under the leadership of the Board of Directors, DFC has worked hard over the last year to re-envision its operations to ensure it is equipped to deal with the significant challenges that face the industry as well as to seize today’s opportunities.

The result is DFC 2.0, a wide-ranging effort to chart a course for the organization’s future and ensure that the supporting governance practices and relationships support and deliver on DFC’s vision and mission.

More from the 2018-2019 Annual Report

• Life Cycle Analysis: Improved Environmental Performance: Through improved nutrition and genetics, as well as improved crop production practices such as increased use of crop rotations, reduced tillage and precision agriculture techniques, dairy farmers were able to dramatically lower their environmental footprint. Between 2011 and 2016, the carbon footprint of each litre of milk decreased by 7%, water consumption decreased by 6%, and land use associated with the production of each litre of milk decreased by 11%!
• Sustainable Production and proAction®: During the past year, DFC worked with provincial associations to release the first proAction Progress Report. It provided an overview of on-farm performance with respect to proAction requirements in food safety, animal care and traceability.
• Research: Research provides the fact-based scientific evidence to support DFC’s policies and best practices. Twenty-two new projects were initiated in the last year. The Dairy Research Cluster 2 projects have been completed and summaries highlighting the benefits to the Canadian dairy sector were published and made available on DairyResearch.ca.
• Nutrition: Our team continues to highlight research which demonstrates that dairy products do not increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and are in fact associated with heart health and DFC has organized conferences and webinars for health professionals with key opinion leaders, mainly renowned surgeons and doctors, on the beneficial role of milk products.
• Services to provinces: In addition to programs coordinated at a national level, DFC dietitians in Alberta, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Quebec work with early childhood educators, school childcare providers, school teachers, fitness professionals and parents to impart the importance of milk products on health and well-being.