LCA Food 2012 in Saint Malo, France! - Manifestations et colloques ...

PARALLEL SESSION 3C: SHEEP AND DAIRY PRODUCTION SYSTEMS 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
Table 3. Carbon footprint of French and New Zealand lamb at the farm gate and the relative contribution
from different sources of emissions (using mass allocation).
France France France New Zealand
Average “In-shed” “Grass” “Grass”
Carbon footprint (kg CO2 eq/ kg LW) 12.9 12.9 12.7 8.5
Enteric fermentation (%) 53.3 53.1 54.1 72.5
Manure in buildings (%) 5.7 5.9 4.5 -
Manure storage (%) 3.7 3.8 3.2 -
Fertiliser use (%) 6.3 6.5 5.5 3.5
Grazing (%) 10.6 9.9 13.3 20.1
Energy use on farm (%) 3.3 3.2 3.9 1.4
Inputs 1 (%) 17.0 17.5 15.0 2.5
Carbon compensation (%)
1
Inputs: feed, fertilisers, energy purchased, ...
25.9 23.6 36.7 -
Carbon sequestration in pastoral soils can potentially have a significant effect on reducing the carbon
footprint at farm level. In the French Grass system, application of the carbon sequestration method of Arrouays
et al., (2002) was calculated to reduce GHG emissions by 36.7% (pasture constituting 88% of the farm
area), while in the In-shed system pastures it reduced emissions by 23.6% (pasture constituting 63% of the
farm area).
The sensitivity analysis showed that results were also highly dependent on methodological choices. The
cross-test performed resulted in variation of results between -2.5% to +47%. In particular, two points can be
mentioned. Methane from enteric fermentation, which is the main source of emissions in France (53%) and
in New Zealand (73%) was calculated using tier 1 and 2 methods respectively.
The choice of allocation between meat and wool is also crucial; there was a small difference between
countries when mass allocation was used and a much larger difference using economic allocation (Table 4).
In New Zealand, wool has an economic value because of its use in carpet making, whereas in France it has
little economic value (less than 1% of total economic returns in 2008). This led to variation of results from -
5.9% to 11.7%.
Table 4. Percentage of the carbon footprint allocated to meat depending on the allocation methodology.
Country Economic allocation Mass allocation
France 99.7% 89.6%
New Zealand 78.0% 85.4%
4. Discussion
Previous lamb carbon footprint studies covering the cradle-to-farm-gate showed a wide variation in results
(Table 5). As in our study, this could be explained by technical characteristics of the systems and also
by methodological choices. Most of those studies represented European production systems. Our results are
in the range of those presented, especially for France.
Table 5. Carbon footprints of lamb from countries in some publications
Publication Country Carbon footprints in kg CO2eq/ kg LW
average and (range of values)
Ledgard et al., 2010 New Zealand 8.6
Leip et al., 2010 Europe 9.5 1
Dollé et al., 2001 France 9.7 (8.3-11.7)
Benoit et al., 2010 France 9.7 1
Williams et al., 2006 UK 6.6 (4.7-8.2) 1
Eblex, 2009 UK 6.9 1
1 The results were published with the FU 1 kg of carcass weight meat. Conversion into LW using a standard killing-out
percentage of 47%.
The higher carbon footprint of French lamb was due to the use of external feed inputs and the fact that
sheep are housed in-shed for part of the year in all French systems, with emissions from manure management
(especially for the In-shed system in both cases). Conversely, in New Zealand, where productivity is often
higher due to warmer climatic conditions, the animals stay outside all year round eating perennial pastures
and therefore there are no gaseous emissions linked to external food production and manure management.
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