Dairy Farms and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): The Allocation Criterion Useful to Estimate Undesirable Products

Elio Romano, Rocco Roma, Flavio Tidona, Giorgio Giraffa 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 (BG), Italy
Rocco Roma: Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of Bari, 70126 Bari, Italy
Flavio Tidona: Council for Agricultural Research and Economics-Research Centre for Animal Production and Aquaculture, CREA-ZA, 26900 Lodi, Italy
Giorgio Giraffa: Council for Agricultural Research and Economics-Research Centre for Animal Production and Aquaculture, CREA-ZA, 26900 Lodi, Italy
Andrea Bragaglio: Department of Medicine Veterinary, University of Bari, 70010 Valenzano (BA), Italy

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 8, 1-24

Abstract: In this study, the life cycle assessment (LCA) principle was performed to estimate the environmental impact of three dairy farms that operate using different farming systems, namely, conventional (CON), organic (ORG), and high-quality (HQ) modes. In Italy, the typical style of high-quality (HQ) farming is commonly included in the conventional system but is more strictly regulated by the Decree of the Italian Ministry of Health N° 185/1991. Although the farms are not fully representative of each conduct, they showed intrinsic peculiarities, e.g., the cow-culling rate of each system. This rate requires a quantification as it may be related to loss of income. Allocation criteria were applied to attribute the quantities of pollutants to the co-products: wheat, involved in the congruence and number of cows culled, the latter being undesirable and therefore necessary to quantify. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) highlighted that the no-dairy products significantly mitigated ( p < 0.05) some of the impacts’ categories. The allocation of culled cows decreased the impacts of the CON and particularly those of the ORG farms when the mass mode was adopted. HQ showed values similar to the results without allocation. Overall, the objective of identifying a “marker” of undesirable products, estimated by the culling rate, was partially achieved.

Keywords: dairy cattle; life cycle assessment; allocation criterion; co-products; farming system (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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