Abstract
This article describes a novel methodological approach for the integrated sustainability assessment of pasture-based dairy sheep systems. Most studies on livestock system sustainability focus on animal production, farm profitability, and mitigation strategies of greenhouse gas emissions. However, recent research indicates that pasture-based livestock farming also contributes positively to rural areas, and the associated increase in plant diversity promotes ecosystem functioning and services in natural and managed grasslands. Likewise, little attention has focused on how pasture-based livestock systems affect soil carbon changes, biodiversity, and ecotoxicity. Furthermore, the quality and safety of food products, particularly sheep milk and cheese, and socioeconomic issues such as cultural heritage and consumer behavior are often neglected in livestock system sustainability assessments. To improve the analysis of sustainability and adaptation strategies of livestock systems, we suggest a holistic approach that integrates indicators from diverse disciplines with complementary methods and models capable of capturing the complexity of these systems at multiple scales. A multidisciplinary perspective generates new indicators to identify critical trade-offs and synergies related to the resilience of dairy sheep livestock systems. A multiscale approach provides insights on the effects of socioeconomic and environmental changes associated with current dairy sheep grazing systems across multiple scales. The combined approach will facilitate the development and progressive implementation of novel management strategies needed to adapt pasture-based dairy sheep farms to changing conditions under future socioeconomic and environmental scenarios.
Highlights
Livestock sustainability assessment methodologies tend to focus on environmental and economic dimensions [17], limiting their ability to cover the diversity of functions, goods, and services provided by diverse systems
There is a consensus that sustainable livestock systems should provide a net farm income that supports an acceptable standard of living for farmers, minimize environmental impacts, produce safe and nutritious foods, promote a good level of animal welfare, meet social expectations, and enhance or maintain high biodiversity standards [19,20]
The outputs are very different in terms of the number and type of attributes and indicators used; carbon footprint is the prevalent indicator in environmental sustainability studies compared to more than 100 potential indicators in the multidimensional studies (Table 1)
Summary
The sustainability of an extensive grazing system should be analyzed considering the multiple scales of the food system in which it operates, i.e., from the biochemical and ecological processes occurring on the soil to the biomes, the animal physiological processes, the dairy activities in the farm, to the socioeconomic processes in local communities, the food industry, and local and international markets [16]. The integration of these aspects becomes even more necessary especially in dairy sheep systems, where the management is extensive or semi-extensive and predominate rustic autochthonous breeds, and fluctuating space-time dynamics (transhumant herds) are involved. The purpose of the proposed methodological framework is to capture trade-offs and synergies among multiple dimensions and scales of analysis to support decisionmaking processes
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