Assessment of environmental footprint of livestock facilities

Abstract

While livestock production forms one of the pillars of the EU food industry it
faces many societal challenges, not least from the rising demand for meat protein,
increasingly stringent environmental regulations, coupled with the falling numbers
of young farmers entering the industry. Modern farm animal production is
increasingly regarded as a source of solid, liquid and gaseous emissions which
can be both a nuisance and environmentally harmful. Objective of this paper
is to present an integrated approach for assessing the environmental impact
of livestock farm. To assess the environmental impact of the tools (equipment,
production system, monitoring and management techniques) we will apply
LCA, which studies the environmental aspects throughout a product s lifecycle,
from , cradle to grave. By considering impacts throughout the product life cycle,
LCA provides a comprehensive overview of the environmental characteristics of
that product or process and a more accurate picture of the true environmental
trade-offs in product selection. Afterward we can propose modifications and
technological improvements in order to reduce the total ecological footprint and
thus to move to a more sustainable livestock production.

Full text

International Conference on Food and Biosystems Engineering, 28-31 May 2015, Mykonos island,
FaBE2015 162
Assessment of environmental footprint of
livestock facilities
T. Bartzanas1∗
, V. Anestis1, Ch. Papaioannou2, C. Kittas3
1CERTH-IRETETH, Dimitriados 95 and P. Mela, 38333, Volos, Greece
2TEI of Thessaly, Dept. of Biosystems Engineering, 41110 Larisa, Greece
3University of Thessaly, Dept. of Agriculture, Crop Production and Rural Environment, Volos, Greece
Abstract
While livestock production forms one of the pillars of the EU food industry it
faces many societal challenges, not least from the rising demand for meat protein,
increasingly stringent environmental regulations, coupled with the falling num-
bers of young farmers entering the industry. Modern farm animal production is
increasingly regarded as a source of solid, liquid and gaseous emissions which
can be both a nuisance and environmentally harmful. Objective of this paper
is to present an integrated approach for assessing the environmental impact
of livestock farm. To assess the environmental impact of the tools (equipment,
production system, monitoring and management techniques) we will apply
LCA, which studies the environmental aspects throughout a product s lifecycle,
from , cradle to grave. By considering impacts throughout the product life cycle,
LCA provides a comprehensive overview of the environmental characteristics of
that product or process and a more accurate picture of the true environmental
trade-offs in product selection. Afterward we can propose modifications and
technological improvements in order to reduce the total ecological footprint and
thus to move to a more sustainable livestock production.
Keywords: EU food industry, LCA, environmental footprint
Th
e needs of the Agricultural Sector in
Greece in order to overcome its weak-
nesses and improve its competitiveness
in the world market are numerous. It is a strate-
gic goal of the country to achieve higher added
value for the agricultural goods produced (HM-
RDF, 2014). Certification of the products’ high
quality and of their increased environmental
performance could aid to this respect. Methods
for estimating the environmental performance
of agricultural products showing increased en-
vironmental impacts, such as those from mod-
ern livestock processes, are therefore needed
for achieving the abovementioned goal.
The importance of livestock processes re-
garding global environmental pollution was
clearly stated in the work of Steinfeld et al.
(2006). This study showed that livestock pro-
duction processes are significant contributors
to the global anthropogenic emissions (e.g.
CO
2
(9%), CH
4
(35-40%), N
2
O (65%) and NH
3
(64%)). For these estimations, both on-farm
∗Corresponding author e-mail: thomas
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International Conference on Food and Biosystems Engineering, 28-31 May 2015, Mykonos island,
FaBE2015 162
and off-farm processes in the total production
chain were taken into account. This study has
triggered the increasing attention of the scien-
tific community on the environmental impact
assessment (EIA) of livestock production pro-
cesses over the last years (de Vries and de Boer,
2010).
The ISO standardized (e.g. Finkbeiner et al.
(2006)) life cycle assessment (LCA) methodol-
ogy has been recognized as a valuable assess-
ment method of the environmental impacts
associated with the production of agricultural
goods (van der Werf and Petit, 2002) as it takes
into account all stages in the production chain,
offering in this way an integrated EIA. The
importance of LCA for the sustainability of
the livestock sector globally was recently ac-
cepted by all the involved international, pri-
vate, and non-governmental organizations with
the formation of Livestock Environmental As-
sessment and Performance (LEAP) Partnership,
in 2012 under the coordination of FAO (FAO,
2015). The LCA methodology has been ap-
plied in various research studies concerning
livestock products for more than a decade.
Characteristic examples are the following:
Basset-Mens and van der Werf (2005) for pork
production, Katajajuuri (2007) for chicken pro-
duction, Beauchemin et al. (2010) for beef pro-
duction, Thomassen et al. (2008b) and O’Brien
et al. (2012) for dairy cattle production, Mol-
lenhorst et al. (2006) for egg production and
Ripoll-Bosch et al. (2013) for sheep produc-
tion. Environmental impact assessment with
LCA is system and location specific (Gerber
et al., 2013), implying that the livestock goods
produced may perform environmentally in a
completely different way from farm to farm.
To our knowledge, no LCA study referring
to a livestock product in Greece has been pub-
lished to date in the international scientific lit-
erature. LCA has the potential to be used for
the aforementioned certification of the envi-
ronmental performance of a Greek livestock
product (and agricultural product in general),
offering added value and help in their compet-
itiveness in the international market. The aim
of this paper is to present the LCA methodol-
ogy with an application to the milk production
from a specific dairy cattle producing farm in
Greece.
I. Materials and Methods
1.1 Description of the LCA method. The LCA
method is presented according to the ILCD
Handbook (JRC, 2010), as compliance to this
document implies compliance to the ISO stan-
dards for LCA. A complete LCA study should
include the following stages: 1) goal definition,
2) scope definition, 3) life cycle inventory (LCI)
analysis, 4) life cycle impact assessment (LCIA)
and 5) life cycle interpretation. Each of those
stages is presented for the specific case of cow-
milk production from a dairy farm in Greece.
In the following paragraphs of this section, the
goal, scope and LCI stages are developed. In
addition, the LCIA and interpretation stages
are elaborated in the Results and Discussion
section of this paper. Wherever possible, the
terms introduced are clarified. For more de-
tails with respect to the LCA terminology, the
reader could refer to the ILCD Handbook.
1.1.1 Goal Definition. It is intended to
identify the major contributing processes (envi-
ronmental hotspots) of this specific system only
to the total global warming potential (GWP)
of the cow-milk produced (impact category
limitation). Regarding the decision-context,
’accounting’ is of interest, meaning that the
GWP is examined as a result of the decisions
in the farm made in the past. Moreover, the
system is regarded as isolated (e.g. the inter-
connection between dairy cattle production
and beef production is not taken into account).
1.1.2 Scope Definition. A cradle-to-farm-
gate (partial) LCA focussing on GWP is pre-
sented. The term ’cradle-to-farm-gate’ refers to
the system boundaries and implies that every
process in the milk production chain until the
export of raw-milk from the farm as a ready-
to-be-sold product is taken into account in the
inventory (e.g. de Boer (2003)). The system
boundaries include two subsystems: the fore-
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ground system and the background system.
In this case, the foreground system includes
the storage of feed ingredients in the farm,
the animal rearing and breeding processes, the
own-production process of ryegrass (silage and
hay) and the management of the manure ex-
creted by the animals. The background system
includes the production of the diesel and elec-
tricity consumed in the farm, the production
processes for all the feed ingredients imported
by the farm as well as all transport processes.
As in previous studies (e.g. Thomassen et al.
(2008b)), the life cycles of buildings and ma-
chinery (construction and use), medicines and
cleaning agents are not included in the anal-
ysis due to lack of data. Figure 1 illustrates
the system boundaries. Concerning the system
functions, only the production function (con-
nected to the product flows from the system)
is considered. Three product outflows can be
named (Figure 1): a) the raw milk sold, b) the
animal live-weight sold and c) the manure ex-
ported. Each one of these flows is represented
by a functional unit (FU) quantifying them (e.g.
1kg of raw milk). However, the reference flow
is selected according to the FU representing the
milk production function of the system, as it is
the basic function of the system. The reference
flow as proposed by the International Dairy
Federation (IDF, 2010) will be used, i.e. 1 kg of
Fat and Protein Corrected Milk (FPCM), mean-
ing that all resource use and emissions from
the system will be expressed per kg FPCM in
the LCI. Regarding the LCI modelling frame-
work, the attributional modelling approach is
used, according to which the environmental
performance is evaluated in a status quo sit-
uation (e.g. Thomassen et al. (2008a)) and in
accordance to the defined goal.
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Multifunctionality issues exist in the follow-
ing processes: production of soybean meal, pro-
duction of wheat straw and the animal produc-
tion process. As recommended by IDF (2010),
economic allocation was used for the soybean
meal and wheat straw production processes.
Moreover, IDF (2010) recommends a physi-
cal causality allocation approach between the
milk and meat co-products of the animal pro-
duction process and system expansion in order
to take into account the manure exported. In
this paper, it was decided to use the aforemen-
tioned physical causality allocation approach
but not the system expansion approach due to
lack of data concerning the replaced chemical
fertilisers (production of chemical fertilisers
depends on the use of manure). Thus, the
allocation factor (AF) for manure was assumed
to be zero. In detail, the allocation criteria
used were: a) the 5 year (2009-2013) avg. world
market prices of the co-products of soybean oil
extraction (57.4% allocated to soybean meal),
b) the 5 year (2009-2013) avg. market prices of
wheat production co-products in Greece (5.7%
allocated to wheat straw) and c) the AF for
milk was calculated equal to 88.3% and the
remaining 11.7% was attributed to the animal
live-weight production. Furthermore, mid-
point level LCIA results are desired, meaning
that it is adequate to deal with separate envi-
ronmental impact categories. In accordance to
the goal that was set, the only environmental
impact category taken into consideration in
this paper is Global Warming. The relevant
indicator is GWP and it is estimated according
to the most recent IPCC 2013 method with
timeframe of 100 years. The GWP’s for the
most important gases proposed by this method
are as follows: 1 kg CO
2
eq./kg for CO
2
, 25.25
kg CO
2
eq./kg for biogenic CH, 28 kg CO
2
eq/kg for fossil CH
4
and 265 kg CO
2
eq/kg
for N2H.
1.1.3. LCI Analysis. In this phase, the in-
puts (materials) and outputs (emissions to air,
water and soil) for every process in the sys-
tem are quantified. Primary data collection
was based in personal communication with the
farm owner by visiting the farm and by using
a specifically formed questionnaire. The dairy
cattle producing farm is located close to the
city of Larissa.
The time frame used in the analysis is the
milk production for the year 2013 (January 1st-
December 31st). Important information for
the farm is provided in Table 1. Concerning
the manure management system of the farm,
manure is collected in slurry form and on a
daily basis from the housing system by using
scrapers. It is stored in a slurry tank which
is emptied every 5 days. On an annual basis,
part of the total manure quantity produced is
used for fertilising the farm’s ryegrass culti-
vation. The rest is transported to other crop
cultivation fields located in close distance to
the farm and spread again for fertilisation pur-
poses. Secondary LCI databases are used for
the inventory of the background system (the
Ecoinvent 3 (Ecoinvent, 2015) and the Agri-
footprint (Blonk-Consultants, 2015) databases).
With respect to the transport processes, the ap-
proach developed by Vellinga et al. (2013) was
followed. Nevertheless, emission data at the
farm level have to be developed. The following
general concept was used for the emissions to
air:
The emission factors (EF’s) / models used
for the calculation of important emissions to
air along with the references are presented in
Table 2. Finally, Table 3 lists the inventory re-
sults for the most important GHG’s and the
main contributing processes for the partial life
cycle studied.
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FaBE2015 162
1.2 LCA Software-SimaPro. The software
that has been mostly used to perform LCA
research and it is also used for this paper’s
needs is SimaPro. Specifically, the version
8.0.4.26 PhD was available (PRe-Consultants,
2014). The specifically designed environment
of the software offers the ability of building up
the desired study by taking into consideration
all the stages of the LCA method. Moreover,
the software provides all the tools (e.g. sec-
ondary LCI databases, LCIA methods) needed
to successfully complete any LCA study. The
LCI databases and the IPCC 2013 method used
in this paper are all incorporated in the soft-
ware. The software was finally used for obtain-
ing the complete LCI and the desired global
warming assessment.
II. Results and Discussion
2.1 Life Cycle Impact Assessment. The total
GWP calculated for this partial life cycle of
cow-milk production was equal to 1.78 kg CO
2
eq./kg FPCM at the farm gate. The foreground
system (or the on-farm processes) contributed
0.91 kg CO
2
eq./kg FPCM (51.1% of the total
GWP).
Furthermore, the soybean meal production
chain accounts for 26% of the total GWP. Bio-
genic methane (i.e. enteric and from manure
management) contributes 0.81 kg CO
2
eq. to
the total GWP, 97.5% of which comes from the
dairy farm. CO
2
from land transformation is
the second most important substance (0.41 kg
CO
2
eq.), 94% of which is a result of the land
transformed in Argentina and Brazil in favour
of soybean production. CO
2
from fossil fuels
and N2O due to agricultural processes (ma-
nure storage, manure application and domestic
crop production) have a smaller contribution
(15.7% and 11.8% of the total GWP, respec-
tively).
2.2 Life Cycle Interpretation. Direct com-
parisons of the results in absolute values with
results already existing in literature cannot be
done due to differences in methodology (e.g.
estimation of emissions, allocation principles,
functional unit etc.) (e.g. Castanheira et al.
(2010)). It was not the aim of this paper to
analyse in detail the differences between the
results obtained and GWP results existing in
the literature. Nevertheless, it can be stated
that the results presented in e.g. the studies of
Thomassen et al. (2008b) and Castanheira et al.
(2010) for GWP are in the same order of mag-
nitude with the results of this paper, showing
possible appropriateness of our findings.
III. Conclusions
In this paper, an application of LCA to the
raw-milk produced in a dairy cattle producing
farm in Greece was described. It can be con-
cluded that in this system it is important to
examine ways of reducing the enteric methane
from cattle (e.g. by alternating the rations’ com-
position and reducing the dependence from
soybean meal) and the methane from manure
management (e.g. by using large quantities of
manure to produce biogas) at the farm level
in order to reduce the total GWP. However,
the impact of any improvement action should
again be checked with additional LCAâ ˘
A´
Zs,
because such improvement actions may result
in changes in the production chain.
Important applications of LCA could in-
clude: a) assessment of the effect of the use of
on-farm tools (equipment, management and
monitoring techniques) on the environmental
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FaBE2015 162
performance of a product, b) provision of a
better picture of the environmental trade-offs
when it comes to product selection. Therefore,
LCA could be used to propose both on and
off-farm modifications and technological im-
provements in order to reduce the total ecolog-
ical footprint and thus to make a step forward
towards more sustainable livestock production
processes.
IV. Acknowledgements
The authors would wish to thank the owner of the dairy cattle producing unit for providing the
information needed to complete this study as well as the dairy cattle producers’ cooperative for
their valuable help in the communication with the owner of the farm. This work was funded by
the Greek GSRT national action ’ICT-AGRI ERANET’ under the project ’SILF’ and by the action
’PABET’ under the project ’GreenSheep’.
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