Dairy Buffalo Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Affected by a Management Choice: The Production of Wheat Crop

Elio Romano, Pasquale De Palo, Flavio Tidona, Aristide Maggiolino and Andrea Bragaglio
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Elio Romano: Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Research Centre for Engineering and Agro-Food Processing, CREA-IT, 24047 Treviglio, Italy
Pasquale De Palo: Department of Medicine Veterinary, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, 70010 Valenzano, Italy
Flavio Tidona: Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Research Centre Animal Production and Aquaculture, CREA-ZA, 26900 Lodi, Italy
Aristide Maggiolino: Department of Medicine Veterinary, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, 70010 Valenzano, Italy
Andrea Bragaglio: Department of Medicine Veterinary, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, 70010 Valenzano, Italy

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 19, 1-20

Abstract: Life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed in dairy buffalo farms representative of Southern Italian farming systems, similar due to several characteristics, with the exception of wheat production. This work evaluated the impacts derived from this management choice, comparing farms with wheat crop (WWC) or not (NWC). In agreement with the literature, economic allocation was chosen as a useful strategy to attribute equivalents to by-products, i.e., culled animals; the same criterion was also adopted to assign pollutants to wheat grain, limited to WWC farms. Environmental impacts in terms of Global Warming Potential (GWP, kg CO 2 eq), Acidification Potential (AC, g SO 2 eq), Eutrophication Potential (EU, g PO 4 3- eq), Agricultural Land Occupation (ALO, m 2 y) and Water Depletion (WD, m 3 ) were estimated. The production of wheat crop significantly affected (p < 0.05) the Agricultural Land Occupation (ALO) category as WWC farms need adequate land. WWC farms could allow a significant reduction in eutrophication (EU) compared to NWC farms (p < 0.05).

Keywords: life cycle assessment; dairy buffalo; forages; wheat crop; allocation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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