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
The methodological choices influence the results. Allocation procedure is a crucial factor: ideally, it has
to be common between countries but the choice should be meaningful in every context. That was not the case
for economic allocation, usually used in New Zealand, because in France there was no real market for wool.
Another factor is the method of modelling of the systems and the environmental fluxes. In France, a lot has
been done concerning data collection at farm level to assess, among others the animal intake and excretion,
while the models concerning the emissions were quite simple (emission factors). In contrast, in New Zealand,
the pasture intake was modelled due to inaccuracy in estimating it in hill country conditions. It is recommended
that sufficiently detailed models are used that have been tested and validated for pasture types
and farm systems and adapted for the country of interest. In that way the models will reflect the main determining
factors and be used to identify options for increasing feed conversion efficiency and reducing the
carbon footprint.
To make the results comparable between countries, there is a need to build a common methodology about
the carbon footprint of lamb. This requires a common framework with respect to some methodological rules
but with the possibility for countries to take into account their specificities and to use their own validated
models or parameters.
5. Conclusions
Our study provides data on the carbon footprint of lamb for two countries with specific production systems.
Methodological issues were very important because of their influence on the results. Currently, because
of the potential economical stakes linked to this topic and the need to build an international common
framework to allow comparison of results, a range of international groups are working on a standard for carbon
footprinting of lamb, through the initiative of the Beef + Lamb New Zealand organisation. This should
be available in 2013. This group has also already identified requirements for future work, in the areas of soil
carbon sequestration and development of a biophysical allocation approach for meat vs wool.
In the future, it will be important to obtain results over several years to analyse the annual variability of
the results. Indeed, it is known that the practices could vary a lot from year to year, due to climatic or economic
conditions, such as drought, high costs of some inputs, diseases and market opportunities.
Learnings from studies such as this one, involving research teams from several countries, enables identification
of key factors for carbon footprint and life cycle assessment methodology, to ensure objective comparability
of the ecological performance of systems.
6. Acknowledgements
The authors want to thank the farmers of the French Breeding Network and Beef+LambNZ for farm data,
Interbev (the French Meat sector board), Institut de l’Elevage and AgResearch for its funding.
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