Who this is for
Anyone collecting farm data for a reporting cycle who needs to complete a dairy carbon footprint assessment for one farm and one year. You work through a set of survey sections, then submit to get the farm's result.
Before you start
The farm must already exist in the farm database. Assessments attach to a farm and a reporting year.
You do not need all your data before you begin. Changes are stored as you make them, so you can stop partway through and anyone in your account can pick it up later.
Gather what you have for the four mandatory sections: herd numbers, milk production and feed purchases. You do not need to convert or reshape any of it first — enter it in whatever form your records already take:
- Herd numbers and milk production can be entered monthly, quarterly or yearly.
- Feed amounts can be entered in kg DM or kg fresh weight, whichever your records use.
- Purchased feed can be entered per animal per day, per animal per month, per animal per year, or as a total annual amount for each animal type.
Steps
- In the left-hand menu, select Farm Data, then Assessments. Assessment Management opens on the Data Collection tab.
- Find the farm and year in the Farm Assessments table. Each row is one farm and one year, and carries a separate status for each assessment type.
- Open the assessment. Select the status in the CARBON column to open an assessment that already exists, or select New Assessment and choose the farm, the year and the assessment type.
- Work through the sections listed down the left-hand side. Four are mandatory and marked with an asterisk: Survey, Herd Composition, Milk Production and Feed & Ration.
- Complete Survey first. It records the size of the farm, which the fertiliser and silage sections both rely on.
- Fill in the remaining mandatory sections. Where a section offers a choice of period or unit, pick the one that matches your source records.
- Complete the optional sections where you have real data. Where you leave them, ODOS uses default values for the farm's country. Your own figures give you a more accurate result.
- Attach a supporting document to any section if you want one on file. Select Choose File under Reference File. The accepted formats are listed beneath it.
- Select Summary. Completion Overview shows how many mandatory and optional sections are done, and Section Status lists each one with what it holds.
- Select Submit Assessment.
There is no save button. Your changes are stored as you make them and are there the next time the assessment is opened, by you or by anyone else in your account. View history in the header shows who changed what, and the header also names who last updated the assessment and when. It tracks changes to the data, not past results.
You may not need to enter anything in Silage & Diet. ODOS works out the rest of the herd's ration from the data you have already entered, and prompts you where it needs more from you.
How to confirm it worked
An Assessment Results window opens as soon as you submit, with the farm's carbon footprint, its total milk production and a breakdown of where the emissions came from. Select View Complete Results to open the full results, or close the window to stay where you are.
Back on the Farm Assessments table, the assessment's status in the CARBON column reads Completed, and the Completed Assessments count at the top of Assessment Management goes up by one.
Common problems
Submit Assessment is not available. A mandatory section is still incomplete. Open Summary and check Section Status for the one that has not been finished.
You reopened a completed assessment and the status did not change. That is expected. It stays Completed until you actually change something. Once you do, it reads In progress until you submit again. Submitting produces a new result, and the results you see are always the latest ones.
The farm or year you want is not in the New Assessment list. The farm has to exist in the farm database before an assessment can be created against it. Add the farm first, then come back.