For Marcos, CheckMilk made the controlling the reproductive part of the herd more eficiente
On the Pedra D'Água farm, in the municipality of Caicó, Seridó region in Rio Grande do Norte, producer Marcos Antônio de Medeiros managed milk production with a pencil and notebook until November 2023, when he started using the CheckMilk, digital solution designed by the Instituto BioSistêmico (IBS) for the qualification and development of milk suppliers, especially those with a family farming profile.
CheckMilk is based on the Good Practice Guide of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Milk Federation (FIL), material that was reviewed by Embrapa in Brazil. It has a digital management platform and application for use by the technical team and producers served in dairy farming projects carried out by IBS in different regions of the country.
Marcos Antônio is one of the 100 producers served by the Instituto BioSistêmico in the Leite Seridó Project, an initiative in partnership with Sebrae/RN and the Zoetis Foundation. He says that CheckMilk is the first application he uses in his dairy business and that the tool has contributed to improving production management, as information can be easily entered into the system and accessed at any time at the smartphome.
“CheckMilk is easy to use and has made controlling the reproductive part of animals more efficient. We control the cows' calving date, whether they are non-pregnant, pregnant or in the coverage period. This is valuable information for planning dairy production and is now always at our fingertips. Everything is recorded and we have access to technical visit reports. If I happen to lose the physical report, I can access all the recommendations in the app”, reports the producer.
Coverage
Launched in February 2019, the tool initially focused on implementing and monitoring the Milk Supplier Qualification Plan (PQFL) on dairy properties, in compliance with the Normative Instruction - I.N. 77/2018 of the Ministry of Agriculture (MAPA).
In five years, the CheckMilk methodology has already been applied in more than 40 dairy farming projects, in 20 states and 569 municipalities. During this period, 106,748 services were carried out, for a total of 14,799 registered properties.
Data collection from properties is based on 160 observation items of good practices recommended by FAO. Six strategic axes are worked on: animal nutrition, animal health, milking hygiene, animal welfare, in addition to environmental and socioeconomic aspects.
According to CheckMilk's technical coordinator, the management platform enables the categorization of analyzed properties according to a good practice compliance score and the automatic generation of a plan for adjustments and improvements to non-compliance aspects.
“The tool also organizes a schedule of in-person assistance visits to producers. All these services are recorded in the application, through reports and collection of evidence of the improvements put into practice, which generates a history of each property that can be accessed in real time. This makes project management more agile and efficient, with a methodology that can be replicated in different realities”, explains Magalhães.
CheckMilk enables the categorization of analyzed properties according to good practices
The dairy farming projects carried out by IBS in Brazil use the CheckMilk methodology and make the application available to the producers served. Those interested in adopting the tool receive all the necessary guidance from the technical team and have support to clarify any doubts that may arise.
Partnership with Sebrae/MS
In Mato Grosso Sul, one of the projects carried out for Sebrae/MS is Cooplaf Leite, which serves members of the Mixed Agricultural Cooperative for Beef and Dairy Livestock and Family Farming (Cooplaf), in the municipality of Terenos-MS.
For the agribusiness manager at Sebrae/MS, Marcus Rodrigo de Faria, the application of CheckMilk in projects to promote dairy farming in the state has been fundamental in identifying the criteria and actions of good practices in milk production.
“CheckMilk helped with increased agility in processing information about good practices in dairy production and in the way in which data is presented and corrected, when necessary”, says Marcus Rodrigo.
Young Lana Eduarda (on the right) started to collaborate in the management of her grandparents' farm
One of Cooplaf Leite's actions was to promote the use of CheckMilk among young people, children of producers assisted by the project, during the Young Entrepreneur Gymkhana promoted in 2022 by Sebrae/MS and IBS. The daughter of producer Yonara Marcela Souza - Lana Eduarda Souza Vieira, participated in this competition which aimed to encourage the exercise of managing dairy production using the application, as well as encouraging family succession so that young people remain on the property.
Yonara took over management of her parents' property and has been using the CheckMilk app for 3 years. She states that it was easy to learn how to use the tool and after her daughter underwent training during the gymkhana, she gained an ally to organize the management of the property.
When managing her parents' website, Yonara has the support of the CheckMilk application
“With the application, it is simpler and faster to enter expenses and earnings, which gives us an idea of the cows’ income and whether they are paying off. It also helped us improve some milking hygiene points, with guidance on actions that we started to apply with more frequency and quality”, reports the producer.
ESG Metrics
According to the corporate director of IBS, Luis Henrichsen, for dairies, cooperatives or other organizations in the dairy sector, CheckMilk facilitates the proof of ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) practices, as information relating to to milk production, from origin, are available in the system.
Henrichsen adds that the platform provides technical content to increase producers' learning on best practice topics and objectives. “The idea is that the producer has all the information about his property easily in the palm of his hand, as well as knowledge that promotes the development of dairy farming”, she highlights.
To this end, the I.T. team at Instituto BioSistético works on constant updates to the system to ensure a lightweight, easy-to-use application that can be downloaded onto any smartphone device. Producers do not usually have difficulties feeding the system, as the data is recorded offline and, as soon as the producer moves to a location with an internet signal, the information is automatically updated in the system.
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