Coupling of crop and livestock production can reduce the agricultural GHG emission from smallholder farms

Xu, Xiangbo; Xu, Yan; Li, Jing; Lu, Yonglong; Jenkins, Alan; Ferrier, Robert C.; Li, Hong; Stenseth, Nils Chr; Hessen, Dag O.; Zhang, Linxiu; Li, Chang; Gu, Baojing; Jin, Shuqin; Sun, Mingxing; Ouyang, Zhu; Mathijs, Erik

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.106798

Cited by 13 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 59 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Notable regions exhibiting this disparity include the Midwest of the United States, southern Canada, eastern Spain, northwestern France, northwestern India, Borneo in Indonesia, northeastern China, southern Australia (figure 3). The recoupling of crop and livestock production can enhance the reuse of manure, reduce the need for synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, and facilitate GHG emission abatement [65,66]. Overcoming this mismatch requires incentives and subsidies to mobilize nitrogen from livestock systems to crop systems through the anaerobic digestion process.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global potential nitrogen recovery from anaerobic digestion of agricultural residues

Marconi,

Rosa

2024

Environ. Res. Lett.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Meeting the anticipated 50% increase in global food demand by 2050 requires a crucial reassessment of agricultural practices, particularly in terms of nitrogen fertilizers inputs. This study analyzes the technical potential of nitrogen recovery from livestock manure and crop residues, bringing attention to the often-overlooked resource of digestate derived from anaerobic digestion. Our analysis highlights the significant capacity of the anaerobic digestion process, yielding approximately 234±5 million metric tons (Mt) of nitrogen annually, sourced 93% from livestock manure and 7% from crop residues. Additionally, we estimated that substituting synthetic nitrogen with nitrogen from anaerobic digestion has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70% (185 Mt CO2-eq yr-1). Lastly, 2.5 billion people could be sustained by crops grown using nitrogen from anaerobic digestion of manure and crop residues rather than synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. Although agricultural residues have double the technical potential of current synthetic nitrogen fertilizer production, 30% of croplands encounter difficulties in satisfying their nitrogen needs solely through crop residues and anaerobic digestion manure. This deficiency primarily results from inefficient reuse attributed to geographical mismatches between crop and livestock systems. This underscores the urgent need to reconnect livestock and cropping systems and facilitate the transport and reuse of manure in crop production. In conclusion, the mobilization of these large amounts of nitrogen from livestock manure and crop residues will require to overcome the nitrogen from anaerobic digestion green premium with incentives and subsidies.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global potential nitrogen recovery from anaerobic digestion of agricultural residues

Marconi,

Rosa

2024

Environ. Res. Lett.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The farm covers a total area of 675 ha, which is used for growing rainfed crops (660 ha) and to keep animals confined (i.e., they stay in the dairy farm or do not graze at any time of the year). The main characteristics of the studied farm, which is categorized as fully coupled crop-livestock production [23], are summarized in Table 1. The farm is representative of mixed farms in Romania, having an average size, both in terms of the number of animals and cultivated area [3].…”

Section: Case Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For the impact assessment, midpoint impact categories are widely used and recommended in LCAs applied to agricultural production [18,23]. Since the analysis addressed both the crop and the livestock systems, we focused on impact categories relevant to both systems and directly correlated this with the estimated emissions.…”

Section: Life Cycle Impact Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, those authors only focused on a single MFS product (beef production) and did not consider the comparability limitations between farms when assessing impacts, such as animal and crop conditions (confinement, rainfed, etc.). More recently, studies in China by Ma et al [7] at a regional level and by Xu et al [23] at a farm level used data from farm surveys for the two mixed farming outputs (livestock and crop products). These authors reported a decrease in GHG emissions by increasing cooperation and integration between crops and livestock farms, once again highlighting the potential benefits of reconnecting these systems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Environmental Performance of a Mixed Crop–Dairy Cattle Farm in Alexandria (Romania)

Ben Abdallah,

Gallego-Elvira,

Popa

et al. 2024

Agriculture

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Agricultural specialization has increased considerably in Europe over the last decades, leading to the separation of crop and livestock production at both farm and regional levels. Such a transformation is often associated with higher environmental burdens due to excessive reliance on exogenous inputs and manure management issues. Reconnecting crop and livestock production via mixed farming systems (MFSs) could improve circularity and resilience, leading to reduced environmental impacts. The objective of this study was to evaluate the life cycle environmental performance of a commercial mixed crop–dairy cattle farm in Romania and to compare it against the corresponding specialized systems. The evaluation covered both dairy cattle production (milk and meat) and cash crops. Overall, the results show that the coupled system improves environmental performance by reducing the over-reliance on high-impact inputs like synthetic fertilizers and exogenous feed. The carbon footprint for the milk production of the studied system (1.17 kg CO2 eq.) per kg of fat- and protein-corrected milk (FPCM) was 10% lower than the mean value of common intensive milk production systems. The eutrophication impacts (2.52 × 10−4 kg P eq and 2.67 × 10−4 kg N eq./kg of FPCM) presented values of one order of magnitude less than their specialized counterparts. However, the impacts of the studied MFS, albeit lower than those for comparable specialized systems, still remain relatively high. In particular, methane emissions from enteric fermentation (0.54 kg CO2 eq./kg FPCM) were a major contributor to the carbon footprint. This highlighted the need to address the elevated emissions from enteric fermentation with better feed management, as well as improving and reinforcing the system’s self-sufficiency.

show abstract

“…Identifying the sources of uncertainty in modeling greenhouse gas emissions and analyzing their sensitivity can improve accuracy in modeling emissions and support the development of effective mitigation strategies for sustainable livestock production [1,6,7]. Different frameworks, methods, and approaches such as Monte Carlo simulations, contribution to variance analysis, global sensitivity methods, traditional matched filter methods, optimal estimation (OE) methods, integrated assessment models, model intercomparison studies, scenario analysis, and expert judgment have been used in analyzing the cause or source of uncertainties to perform uncertainty analysis and quantification and sensitivity analysis in greenhouse gas emissions from ruminants [5,[8][9][10][11].…”

Section: Introduction 1uncertainty Quantification and Sensitivity Ana...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Review of Sources of Uncertainty and Techniques Used in Uncertainty Quantification and Sensitivity Analysis to Estimate Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Ruminants

Kimei,

Nyambo,

Mduma

et al. 2024

Sustainability

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Uncertainty quantification and sensitivity analysis are essential for improving the modeling and estimation of greenhouse gas emissions in livestock farming to evaluate and reduce the impact of uncertainty in input parameters to model output. The present study is a comprehensive review of the sources of uncertainty and techniques used in uncertainty analysis, quantification, and sensitivity analysis. The search process involved rigorous selection criteria and articles retrieved from the Science Direct, Google Scholar, and Scopus databases and exported to RAYYAN for further screening. This review found that identifying the sources of uncertainty, implementing quantifying uncertainty, and analyzing sensitivity are of utmost importance in accurately estimating greenhouse gas emissions. This study proposes the development of an EcoPrecision framework for enhanced precision livestock farming, and estimation of emissions, to address the uncertainties in greenhouse gas emissions and climate change mitigation.

show abstract

Coupling of crop and livestock production can reduce the agricultural GHG emission from smallholder farms

Cited by 13 publications

References 59 publications

Global potential nitrogen recovery from anaerobic digestion of agricultural residues

Global potential nitrogen recovery from anaerobic digestion of agricultural residues

Environmental Performance of a Mixed Crop–Dairy Cattle Farm in Alexandria (Romania)

Review of Sources of Uncertainty and Techniques Used in Uncertainty Quantification and Sensitivity Analysis to Estimate Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Ruminants

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About