Dairy sheep farms in semi-arid rangelands: A carbon footprint dilemma between intensification and land-based grazing

Escribano, M.; Elghannam, Ahmed; Mesías, F.J.

doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104600

Cited by 40 publications

(42 citation statements)

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“…From this point of view, Sardinian sheep sector represents an interesting case study for testing strategies aimed to achieve a sustainable livestock supply chain and to better understand how to conciliate food provision with Accepted paper reduced environmental impacts. Several authors (Batalla et al, 2015;Escribano et al, 2020) showed how and to what extent the intensification level of Mediterranean dairy sheep farms affects the environmental performance of production systems, but the scientific evidences are not unambiguous and well defined. Usually, in life cycle assessment (LCA) studies, the intensification of agricultural and livestock systems improves the environmental performance per functional unit (FU) of product when the marginal yield increase is higher than the marginal input utilization (FAO, 2010;Notarnicola et al, 2017), although the ecological optimum (eco-efficiency) depends on the specific situation (Hayashi et al, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How does soil carbon sequestration affect greenhouse gas emissions from a sheep farming system? Results of a life cycle assessment case study

et al. 2021

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Highlights Extensification of dairy sheep systems provides an environmental benefit when soil C sequestration is considered. Extensification of dairy sheep systems determines lower environmental impact per hectare of utilized agricultural area. Enteric methane emissions are the main source of GHG emissions of the sheep milk life cycle. Carbon sequestration in permanent grasslands can considerably contribute to climate change mitigation. Abstract A life cycle assessment (LCA) study of a transition from semi-intensive to semi-extensive Mediterranean dairy sheep farm suggests that the latter has a strong potential for offsetting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through the soil C sequestration (Cseq) in permanent grasslands. The extensification process shows clear environmental advantage when emission intensity is referred to the area-based functional unit (FU). Several LCA studies reported that extensive livestock systems have greater GHG emissions per mass of product than intensive one, due to their lower productivity. However, these studies did not account for soil Cseq of temporary and permanent grasslands, that have a strong potential to partly mitigate the GHG balance of ruminant production systems. Our LCA study was carried out considering the transition from a semi-intensive (SI) towards a semi-extensive (SE) production system, adopted in a dairy sheep farm located in North-Western Sardinia (Italy). Impact scope included enteric methane emissions, feed production, on-farm energy use and transportation, infrastructures as well as the potential C sink arising from soil Cseqwith respect to the emission intensity. In order to provide a more comprehensive analysis, we used the following FUs: 1 kg of fat and protein corrected milk (FPCM) and 1 ha of utilised agricultural area (UAA). We observed that the extensification of production system determined contrasting environmental effects when using different FUs accounting for soil Cseq. When soil Cseq in emission intensity estimate was included, we observed slightly lower values of GHG emissions per kg of FPCM in the SI production system (from 3.37 to 3.12 kg CO2 equivalents – CO2-eq), whereas a greater variation we observed in the SE one (from 3.54 to 2.90 kg CO2-eq). Considering 1 ha of UAA as FU and including the soil Cseq, the emission intensity in SI moved from 6,257 to 5,793 kg CO2-eq, whereas values varied from 4,020 to 3,299 kg CO2-eq in SE. These results indicated that the emission intensity from semi-extensive Mediterranean dairy sheep farms can be considerably reduced through the soil Cseq, although its measurement is influenced by the models used in the estimation.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How does soil carbon sequestration affect greenhouse gas emissions from a sheep farming system? Results of a life cycle assessment case study

et al. 2021

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“…(2015) and Escribano et al . (2020) (EUR-2). Solid lines are without including potential SOC sequestration, dotted lines include sequestration.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Weiss and Leip, 2012; Gerber et al , 2013) and specific LCA-based studies analysing the GHG emissions from different dairy production systems (as for Spain, e.g. in Batalla et al , 2015 or in Escribano et al , 2020). In an attempt to derive historical European emissions, we used a combination of information: (i) LCA-based European studies for one year, (ii) Historical data on changes in productivity parameters and breeds for Spanish sheep and goats as a proxy of how European production systems have changed in the last decades and (iii) LCA-based GHG emissions for different Spanish production systems and breeds (full details are provided in the online Supplementary File: general approach in Section 1, (i) Section 2, (ii) and (iii) Section 3).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(2015) and Escribano et al . (2020) (SOC-2) (full details are given in the online Supplementary File in Section 3). This approach estimates the annual SOC that can potentially be sequestered averaged over 100 years following the approach by Petersen et al .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For all the scenarios mentioned above, we included as an alternative emissions projection, that pathway of net GHG emissions that considers CO 2 offsets due to estimations of potential soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration as approximated using data from Batalla et al (2015) (SOC-1), and Batalla et al (2015) and Escribano et al (2020) (SOC-2) (full details are given in the online Supplementary File in Section 3). This approach estimates the annual SOC that can potentially be sequestered averaged over 100 years following the approach by Petersen et al (2013).…”

Section: Description Of Policy Scenarios On Ghg Mitigation From European and Eu-27 Dairy Small Ruminant Activitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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The role of the European small ruminant dairy sector in stabilising global temperatures: lessons from GWP* warming-equivalent emission metrics

Prado

Manzano

Pardo

2021

Journal of Dairy Research

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Recent calls advocate that a huge reduction in the consumption of animal products (including dairy) is essential to mitigate climate change and stabilise global warming below the 1.5 and 2°C targets. The Paris Agreement states that to stabilise temperatures we must reach a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the second half of this century. Consequently, many countries have adopted overall GHG reduction targets (e.g. EU, at least 40% by 2030 compared to 1990). However, using conventional metric-equivalent emissions (CO2-e GWP100) as the basis to account for emissions does not result in capturing the effect on atmospheric warming of changing emission rates from short-lived GHG (e.g. methane: CH4), which are the main source of GHG emissions by small ruminants. This shortcoming could be solved by using warming-equivalent emissions (CO2-we, GWP*), which can accurately link annual GHG emission rates to its warming effect in the atmosphere. In our study, using this GWP* methodology and different modelling approaches, we first examined the historical (1990–2018) contribution of European dairy small ruminant systems to additional atmosphere warming levels and then studied different emission target scenarios for 2100. These scenarios allow us to envision the necessary reduction of GHG emissions from Europe's dairy small ruminants to achieve a stable impact on global temperatures, i.e. to be climatically neutral. Our analysis showed that, using this type of approach, the whole European sheep and goat dairy sector seems not to have contributed to additional warming in the period 1990–2018. Considering each subsector separately, increases in dairy goat production has led to some level of additional warming into the atmosphere, but these have been compensated by larger emission reductions in the dairy sheep sector. The estimations of warming for future scenarios suggest that to achieve climate neutrality, understood as not adding additional warming to the atmosphere, modest GHG reductions of sheep and goat GHG would be required (e.g. via feed additives). This reduction would be even lower if potential soil organic carbon (SOC) from associated pastures is considered.

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Sustainability in the Sardinian sheep sector: A systems perspective, from good practices to policy

Atzori

Bayer

Molle

et al. 2022

Integr Envir Assess & Manag

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The special series addressing UN Sustainable Development Goals highlights "Environmental Management Practices Inspired by SDGs" and aims to call attention to practices, ideas, and thought leaders contributing to sustainability in all facets of the global economy. The 2020s are a transformative decade for human interaction with the environment, largely inspired by the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Scientific research and environmental management practices lead the way to sustainability, and several SDGs aim to reduce our environmental footprint and preserve, protect, and restore ecological health.

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Dairy sheep farms in semi-arid rangelands: A carbon footprint dilemma between intensification and land-based grazing

Cited by 40 publications

References 20 publications

How does soil carbon sequestration affect greenhouse gas emissions from a sheep farming system? Results of a life cycle assessment case study

How does soil carbon sequestration affect greenhouse gas emissions from a sheep farming system? Results of a life cycle assessment case study

The role of the European small ruminant dairy sector in stabilising global temperatures: lessons from GWP* warming-equivalent emission metrics

Sustainability in the Sardinian sheep sector: A systems perspective, from good practices to policy

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