Carbon Footprint of Milk from Pasture-Based Dairy Farms in Azores, Portugal
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MARETEC—Marine, Environment and Technology Centre, LARSyS, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal
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Terraprima—Serviços Ambientais, Sociedade Unipessoal, Lda., 2135-199 Samora Correia, Portugal
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Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2018, 10(10), 3658; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10103658
Received: 5 September 2018
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Revised: 8 October 2018
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Accepted: 9 October 2018
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Published: 12 October 2018
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Livestock Production and Industrial Ecology)
The dairy sector is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Pasture-based dairy production is sometimes credited as environmentally friendlier but is less studied than more intensive production systems. Here we characterize and calculate the carbon footprint (CF), using life cycle assessment, of the “Vacas Felizes” pasture-based milk production system, in the Azores archipelago. Impacts were determined for multiple functional units: mass, energy and nutritional content, farm, area and animal. We performed multivariate analysis to assess the contribution of production parameters to the CF. Finally, we performed a literature review to compare these results with other production systems. Results show that emissions from enteric fermentation, concentrated feed production and (organic and mineral) fertilizer application are the three main sources of impact. Milk yield is a key production feature for the determination of emissions. The average CF is 0.83 kg CO2/kg raw milk. At each milk yield level, the farms are approximately homogeneous. Compared with other studies, “Vacas Felizes” milk has a lower CF than 80 (out of 84) published CFs and on average it is approximately 32% lower.
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Keywords:
milk production; global warming potential; greenhouse gases; life cycle assessment; dairy; grazing; sustainable food production; industrial ecology
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
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MDPI and ACS Style
Morais, T.G.; Teixeira, R.F.M.; Rodrigues, N.R.; Domingos, T. Carbon Footprint of Milk from Pasture-Based Dairy Farms in Azores, Portugal. Sustainability 2018, 10, 3658. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10103658
AMA Style
Morais TG, Teixeira RFM, Rodrigues NR, Domingos T. Carbon Footprint of Milk from Pasture-Based Dairy Farms in Azores, Portugal. Sustainability. 2018; 10(10):3658. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10103658
Chicago/Turabian StyleMorais, Tiago G., Ricardo F.M. Teixeira, Nuno R. Rodrigues, and Tiago Domingos. 2018. "Carbon Footprint of Milk from Pasture-Based Dairy Farms in Azores, Portugal" Sustainability 10, no. 10: 3658. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10103658
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