Milk yield per cow has continuously increased in many countries over the last few decades. In addition to potential economic advantages, this is often considered an important strategy to decrease greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per kg of milk produced. However, it should be considered that milk and beef production systems are closely interlinked, as fattening of surplus calves from dairy farming and culled dairy cows play an important role in beef production in many countries. The main objective of this study was to quantify the effect of increasing milk yield per cow on GHG emissions and on other side effects. Two scenarios were modelled: constant milk production at the farm level and decreasing beef production (as co-product; Scenario 1); and both milk and beef production kept constant by compensating the decline in beef production with beef from suckler cow production (Scenario 2). Model calculations considered two types of production unit (PU): dairy cow PU and suckler cow PU. A dairy cow PU comprises not only milk output from the dairy cow, but also beef output from culled cows and the fattening system for surplus calves. The modelled dairy cow PU differed in milk yield per cow per year (6000, 8000 and 10 000 kg) and breed. Scenario 1 resulted in lower GHG emissions with increasing milk yield per cow. However, when milk and beef outputs were kept constant (Scenario 2), GHG emissions remained approximately constant with increasing milk yield from 6000 to 8000 kg/cow per year, whereas further increases in milk yield (10 000 kg milk/cow per year) resulted in slightly higher (8%) total GHG emissions. Within Scenario 2, two different allocation methods to handle co-products (surplus calves and beef from culled cows) from dairy cow production were evaluated. Results showed that using the 'economic allocation method', GHG emissions per kg milk decreased with increasing milk yield per cow per year, from 1.06 kg CO 2 equivalents (CO 2eq ) to 0.89 kg CO 2eq for the 6000 and 10 000 kg yielding dairy cow, respectively. However, emissions per kg of beef increased from 10.75 kg CO 2eq to 16.24 kg CO 2eq due to the inclusion of suckler cows. This study shows that the environmental impact (GHG emissions) of increasing milk yield per cow in dairy farming differs, depending upon the considered system boundaries, handling and value of co-products and the assumed ratio of milk to beef demand to be satisfied.

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Enduring sustainability challenges requires a new model of collective leadership that embraces critical reflection, inclusivity and care. Leadership collectives can support a move in academia from metrics to merits, from a focus on career to care, and enact a shift from disciplinary to inter- and trans-disciplinary research. Academic organisations need to reorient their training programs, work ethics and reward systems to encourage collective excellence and to allow space for future leaders to develop and enact a radically re-imagined vision of how to lead as a collective with care for people and the planet.

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In Tanzania, the majority of the rural population still relies on fuelwood as their major source of cooking energy. The adaptation measures of small-scale farmers in response to increasing fuelwood scarcity play a key role in altering the course of nutrition insecurity, environmental degradation, and economic instability. This study delivers a classification of coping strategies that does not exist in the literature. Furthermore, it analyses the adaptation measures applied by small-scale farmers in the semi-arid region of Dodoma district in response to fuelwood scarcity. A comparison between two case study sites provides information on the choice of adaptation measures by households. Overall, 28 coping strategies from 24 studies are identified, then differentiated into preventive and acute measures that are arranged into eight clusters. The classification is then used as a codebook to identify applied coping strategies at two case study sites. In total, 23 adaptation measures, including two strategies not cited in the literature, were identified through 39 household interviews. This suggests that the majority of coping strategies applied are independently from regional and social conditions. The majority of the strategies applied at the case study sites and described in the literature are acute measures that do not tackle the underlying problem triggering forest degradation. It is observed that the adaptation measures across the case study sites are widely congruent, thus showing that acute strategies are not replaced by preventive strategies but rather co-exist.

A quantitative performance assessment of improved cooking stoves and traditional three-stone-fire stoves using a two-pot test design in Chamwino, Dodoma, Tanzania AbstractIn Tanzania, a majority of rural residents cook using firewood-based three-stone-fire stoves. In this study, quantitative performance differences between technologically advanced improved cooking stoves and three-stone-fire stoves are analysed.We test the performance of improved cooking stoves and three-stone-fire stoves using local cooks, foods, and fuels, in the semi-arid region of Dodoma in Tanzania. We used the cooking protocol of the Controlled Cooking Test following a two-pot test design. The findings of the study suggest that improved cooking stoves use less firewood and less time than three-stone-fire stoves to conduct a predefined cooking task.In total, 40 households were assessed and ask to complete two different cooking tasks: (1) a fast cooking meal (rice and vegetables) and (2) a slow cooking meal (beans and rice). For cooking task 1, the results show a significant reduction in firewood consumption of 37.1% by improved cooking stoves compared to traditional three-stone-fire stoves; for cooking task 2 a reduction of 15.6% is found. In addition, it was found that the time needed to conduct cooking tasks 1 and 2 was significantly reduced by 26.8% and 22.8% respectively, when improved cooking stoves were used instead of three-stone-fire-stoves.We observed that the villagers altered the initial improved cooking stove design, resulting in the so-called modified improved cooking stove. In an additional Controlled Cooking Test, we conducted cooking task 3: a very fast cooking meal (maize flour and vegetables) within 32 households. Significant changes between the initial and modified improved cooking stoves regarding firewood and time consumption were not detected.However, analyses show that both firewood and time consumption during cooking was reduced when large amounts (for 6-7 household members) of food were prepared instead of small amounts (for 2-3 household members).