Evaluating Three-Pillar Sustainability Modelling Approaches for Dairy Cattle Production Systems

Xabier Díaz De Otálora,Fernando Estellés,Agustín Del Prado,Barbara Amon,Federico Dragoni

doi:10.3390/su13116332

Abstract

Milk production in Europe is facing major challenges to ensure its economic, environmental, and social sustainability. It is essential that holistic concepts are developed to ensure the future sustainability of the sector and to assist farmers and stakeholders in making knowledge-based decisions. In this study, integrated sustainability assessment by means of whole-farm modelling is presented as a valuable approach for identifying factors and mechanisms that could be used to improve the three pillars (3Ps) of sustainability in the context of an increasing awareness of economic profitability, social well-being, and environmental impacts of dairy production systems (DPS). This work aims (i) to create an evaluation framework that enables quantitative analysis of the level of integration of 3P sustainability indicators in whole-farm models and (ii) to test this method. Therefore, an evaluation framework consisting of 35 indicators distributed across the 3Ps of sustainability was used to evaluate three whole-farm models. Overall, the models integrated at least 40% of the proposed indicators. Different results were obtained for each sustainability pillar by each evaluated model. Higher scores were obtained for the environmental pillar, followed by the economic and the social pillars. In conclusion, this evaluation framework was found to be an effective tool that allows potential users to choose among whole-farm models depending on their needs. Pathways for further model development that may be used to integrate the 3P sustainability assessment of DPS in a more complete and detailed way were identified.

Highlights

The global demand for livestock products is expected to increase by up to 70% by2050 [1]
The SIMSDAIRY and GAMEDE models integrated equal percentages of economic indicators (62%), while a lower number of indicators was observed in the WLGP model (39%) (Figure 1)
This study focused on the design, application, and testing of a quantitative method for the evaluation of whole-farm models oriented toward the analysis of the integrated sustainability of dairy production systems (DPS)

Summary

Introduction

In this context, dairy production systems (DPS) constitute an essential backbone of European agriculture, producing high-quality protein products that are key for our diets by means of fibrous feed resources that cannot be directly utilized by humans or converted to human food by monogastric animals [2,3]. Dairy production systems (DPS) constitute an essential backbone of European agriculture, producing high-quality protein products that are key for our diets by means of fibrous feed resources that cannot be directly utilized by humans or converted to human food by monogastric animals [2,3] Products derived from this sector (mainly milk and its derivatives) represent the largest animal product category in the European.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion