Bragaglio A, Nannoni E, Romano E, Lazzari A, Roma R, Bisaglia C, Cutini M
CREA Research Centre for Engineering and Agro-Food Processing, Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l'Analisi dell'Economia Agraria, Via Milano 43, Treviglio 24047, BG, Italy.
Department of Veterinary Medical Sciences (DIMVET), University of Bologna, Via Tolara di Sopra 50, Ozzano Emilia 40064, BO, Italy.
Vet Anim Sci. 2025 Jan 4;27:100426. doi: 10.1016/j.vas.2025.100426. eCollection 2025 Mar.
Several studies investigated the sustainability of dairy cattle systems. Global warming potential (GWP) is a "touchstone impact category" of LCA, whereas fossil depletion (FD) remains a scarcely studied environmental indicator. This study aims to help fill the gap of knowledge on FD in dairy cattle systems. We compared two highly specialized dairy cattle farms equipped with precision technologies: a large (L) and a small (S) farm. The discriminants were the number of lactating cows and the agricultural area, with L having approximately twice the heads and three times the area of S. In LCA we used the main product (FPCM, i.e., 1 kg of milk normalized for fat and protein), as the functional unit (FU). A second FU was used, i.e., hectare of occupied area. By changing the FU, the study showed different results, because S performed better when FPCM was used while L performed better when the agricultural area was used. Allocation of culled cows affected the environmental impacts of both farms improving their sustainability. A high culling rate provides information on herd management, and it can result in lost income. We proposed the allocation as helpful to quantify the culled cows, a potentially undesirable product, showing a significant difference between farms, i.e., 30 and 38 % of culling rate in the L S, respectively. In S, this rate led to a higher income percentage provided by culled cows (6.3 vs. 4.2 % of L). Allocation decreased the equivalents of some LCA environmental indicators, showing an oversized replacement of cows.
多项研究调查了奶牛养殖系统的可持续性。全球变暖潜能值（GWP）是生命周期评价（LCA）的一个“关键影响类别”，而化石能源耗竭（FD）仍是一个鲜有研究的环境指标。本研究旨在填补奶牛养殖系统中关于FD知识的空白。我们比较了两个配备精准技术的高度专业化奶牛场：一个大型（L）农场和一个小型（S）农场。区分因素是泌乳奶牛数量和农业面积，L场的奶牛数量约为S场的两倍，面积约为S场的三倍。在生命周期评价中，我们将主要产品（FPCM，即1千克按脂肪和蛋白质标准化的牛奶）作为功能单位（FU）。还使用了第二个功能单位，即占用面积公顷。通过改变功能单位，研究显示出不同的结果，因为使用FPCM时S场表现更好，而使用农业面积时L场表现更好。淘汰奶牛的分配影响了两个农场的环境影响，提高了它们的可持续性。高淘汰率提供了有关畜群管理的信息，并且可能导致收入损失。我们提出这种分配有助于量化淘汰奶牛这一潜在不受欢迎的产品，显示出农场之间的显著差异，即L场和S场的淘汰率分别为30%和38%。在S场，这个淘汰率导致淘汰奶牛提供的收入百分比更高（6.3%对L场的4.2%）。分配降低了一些生命周期评价环境指标的当量，表明奶牛的替代规模过大。
