Abstract
The dairy sector accounts for a large share of all European agricultural production, at the same time however, it is one of the most ascribed sector contributors to the environmental impact of agriculture, particularly for greenhouse gas emissions. Simultaneously, it is a strategic sector for the economy but generates increasing debate in the community regarding the social aspects mainly related to the use of resources and the food-feed competition of livestock involving the reduction of human-edible crops. In this general framework, this study aims to compare four different dairy farming scenarios characterized by different use of environmental resources in the Alpine area, considering as a case study the production of the Toma di Lanzo cheese (a traditional cheese produced in the mountainous regions of Piedmont—Northwest Italy). The study envisaged the integrated use of three methodologies: Life Cycle Assessment, Life Cycle Costing and the assessment of human-edible feed conversion efficiency to jointly analyze environmental, economic and social aspects. The main results of this research highlighted how the utilization of local breeds, which maximize the efficiency in the use of territory resources, such as grasslands in a mountain environment, allowed dairy production to reduce emissions, when compared to the high-input traditional breeding systems. Although the mountain livestock systems have several critical issues mainly linked to social factors such as low generational turnover, work schedules, modest life quality of families, it is however possible to earn more income than in lowland scenarios. At the same time, this production system allows the Toma di Lanzo cheese-making heritage to be preserved. This mountain pasture cheese, to which superior organoleptic and nutritional characteristics are attributable, when compared to cheeses from the valley floor, incorporates traditional values, a link to the territory and the transmission of knowledge. With reference to food-feed competition in livestock involving the reduction of the use of human-edible crops and feedstuffs in animal diets, we found that grazing and grass-based feeding systems were one of the most sustainable ways to produce milk.
Highlights
The livestock sector, one of the most important parts of the agrarian economy at European level, is charged as being the major contributor to the environmental impact of agriculture, due to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [1,2,3]
The mountain scenarios (APG and Mountain pasture grazing (MPG)), when compared to lowland scenarios (VBG and Indoor Winter Feeding (IWF)), have a lower environmental impact: their incidence is never higher than 50% of IWF values
The mountain pasture scenarios (MPG and Alpine Pasture Grazing (APG)) allow better economic results to be achieved than the two valley bottom scenarios (IWF and Valley Bottom Grazing (VBG))
Summary
The livestock sector, one of the most important parts of the agrarian economy at European level, is charged as being the major contributor to the environmental impact of agriculture, due to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [1,2,3]. In Italy, 70% of CH4 emissions from the agricultural sector derive from the enteric fermentation by animals in intensive farming and 20% from the management of manure and slurries [10]. In this scenario, Italy is in third place, after France and Germany, respectively, for the contribution of enteric fermentation deriving from the cow milk production sector. Is in third place, after France and Germany, respectively, for the contribution of enteric fermentation deriving from the cow milk production sector These data are probably related to the characteristics of the modern Italian high-input intensive systems of the milk supply chain. In Italy, at the end of 2019, dairy cows totaled 2,612,729 heads [11] for an annual milk production delivered to dairies of 12,112,000 tons, equal to ∼8% of the total European production (158,257,000 tons in 2019) [12]
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