With Green Eyes works together with companies in all kinds of sectors, because sustainability has a broad understanding for a reason: every person/organization can aim to reduce its footprint.
And thanks to a BSc in Animal Husbandry, an abbreviated degree as a veterinary assistant and years of working experience in the agricultural sector, I am now working on different projects to increase the health and well-being of farm animals from the sector within. Working together with famers and welfare organizations is the best combination to make changes! Here’s a small resemblance of some of the projects I have recently been working on.
Project Barth Misset – keeping calves by the mother cow
In 2020 De Ruurhoeve and Eyes on Animals started working on a project proposal to expand the knowledge about the current dairy industry among customers. Whereas calves are mostly kept seperately from their mothers in the current dairy industry, Corné Ansems (owner of De Ruurhoeve) keeps the calves by the mother cows for years now. He has a farm store where he sells his dairy and meat products according to his different management system.
Eyes on Animals asked me to help him out, guiding and coordinating the project because of my work experience in the dairy industry. Corné had the wish to make a bigger concept out of the systematic ‘keeping calves with the cow’. Because ‘working together is the way to go’ we also teamed up with De Dierenbescherming and ZLTO to get a bigger reach.
This is an ongoing project hopefully resulting in an unique dairy and meat concept that can be used for other farms as well. With every step we take we increase the knowledge of customer wishes/market opportunities as we expand the concept within a broader ranch.
Development and update of benchmark criteria – dairy cows and additional modules
On behalf of De Dierenbescherming (The Dutch Society for the Protection of Animals) I have worked the last period of time on checking, improving, adjusting and rewriting the 1- 2- and 3* dairy cow criteria for the trademark ‘Beter Leven’ and solving animal-related questions about dairy cattle criteria.
Next to the dairy cattle criteria I have also been developing a set of criteria for dairy farms that keep the calves with the mother cows for 90 days, together with a lot of researchers and experts. This set of criteria is an additional module that doesn’t necessarily have to be combined with the benchmark criteria 1-, 2- or 3* ‘Beter Leven’, but can also be used by common dairy farms or added to other bench marks.
A video in Dutch about keeping calves by the cow (yes, I was very nervous).
Curious to know more about the work I do, or interested in working together?
Give me a call and let’s team up!
A few other companies that With Green Eyes works together with:
