Soteriades Andreas Diomedes, Stott Alistair William, Moreau Sindy, Charroin Thierry, Blanchard Melanie, Liu Jiayi, Faverdin Philippe
Scotland's Rural College, Future Farming Systems Group, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
Institut de l'Elevage, F-75000 Paris, France.
PLoS One. 2016 Nov 10;11(11):e0166445. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0166445. eCollection 2016.
We aimed at quantifying the extent to which agricultural management practices linked to animal production and land use affect environmental outcomes at a larger scale. Two practices closely linked to farm environmental performance at a larger scale are farming intensity, often resulting in greater off-farm environmental impacts (land, non-renewable energy use etc.) associated with the production of imported inputs (e.g. concentrates, fertilizer); and the degree of self-sufficiency, i.e. the farm's capacity to produce goods from its own resources, with higher control over nutrient recycling and thus minimization of losses to the environment, often resulting in greater on-farm impacts (eutrophication, acidification etc.). We explored the relationship of these practices with farm environmental performance for 185 French specialized dairy farms. We used Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling to build, and relate, latent variables of environmental performance, intensification and self-sufficiency. Proxy indicators reflected the latent variables for intensification (milk yield/cow, use of maize silage etc.) and self-sufficiency (home-grown feed/total feed use, on-farm energy/total energy use etc.). Environmental performance was represented by an aggregate 'eco-efficiency' score per farm derived from a Data Envelopment Analysis model fed with LCA and farm output data. The dataset was split into two spatially heterogeneous (bio-physical conditions, production patterns) regions. For both regions, eco-efficiency was significantly negatively related with milk yield/cow and the use of maize silage and imported concentrates. However, these results might not necessarily hold for intensive yet more self-sufficient farms. This requires further investigation with latent variables for intensification and self-sufficiency that do not largely overlap- a modelling challenge that occurred here. We conclude that the environmental 'sustainability' of intensive dairy farming depends on particular farming systems and circumstances, although we note that more self-sufficient farms may be preferable when they may benefit from relatively low land prices and agri-environment schemes aimed at maintaining grasslands.
我们旨在量化与动物生产和土地利用相关的农业管理实践在更大范围内对环境结果的影响程度。在更大范围内与农场环境绩效密切相关的两种实践是养殖强度，这通常会导致与进口投入品（如精饲料、化肥）生产相关的更大的场外环境影响（土地、不可再生能源使用等）；以及自给自足程度，即农场利用自身资源生产产品的能力，对养分循环有更高的控制，从而将对环境的损失降至最低，这通常会导致更大的场内影响（富营养化、酸化等）。我们探讨了这些实践与185个法国专业奶牛场的农场环境绩效之间的关系。我们使用偏最小二乘结构方程模型来构建环境绩效、集约化和自给自足的潜在变量，并将它们联系起来。代理指标反映了集约化（每头奶牛产奶量、玉米青贮饲料的使用等）和自给自足（自产饲料/总饲料使用量、场内能源/总能源使用量等）的潜在变量。环境绩效由每个农场的综合“生态效率”得分表示，该得分来自一个数据包络分析模型，并输入了生命周期评估和农场产出数据。数据集被划分为两个空间异质（生物物理条件、生产模式）区域。对于这两个区域，生态效率与每头奶牛产奶量、玉米青贮饲料和进口精饲料的使用显著负相关。然而，这些结果不一定适用于集约化但自给自足程度更高的农场。这需要对集约化和自给自足的潜在变量进行进一步研究，这些变量在很大程度上不重叠——这是这里出现的一个建模挑战。我们得出结论，集约化奶牛养殖的环境“可持续性”取决于特定的养殖系统和环境，尽管我们注意到，当自给自足程度更高的农场可能受益于相对较低的土地价格和旨在维护草原的农业环境计划时，它们可能更可取。
