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
Figure 3. Yield production of corn grain per state
(kg DM corn grain/m 2 )
3.2 Land use impacts related to feed production
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Figure 4. Land use area requirements and contribution
to corn grain national production per state (m 2 ·yr/kg
DM corn grain)
Part of the national impact assessment, Figure 5 indicates land use impact factors on biodiversity for the
production of corn grain in each state. Although results show that highest potential impacts occur in Florida
and Alabama, such states do not necessarily produce significant amounts of corn grain. Thus, potential land
use impacts on biodiversity were quantified based on two key-parameters. These are indicated in the variable
width graph presented in Figure 6; the land use impact on biodiversity due to state production of corn grain
(on the y axis) and the national crop production fraction (on the x axis).
Typical land use impacts on biodiversity are expressed in units of potentially disappeared fraction (PDF)
of species on a unit surface. Results are shown as the area of each state rectangle, quantifying land use impacts
per kg of crop (PDF.m 2 .yr /kg DM) at the national level. A state with a high crop production fraction
and a high impact factor on biodiversity contributes to a larger share of the national impacts of the crop produced.
States with the highest impacts are Indiana (18% of total share), Illinois (16%) and Iowa (16%). Land
use impacts on biodiversity for a national corn grain production sum up to a total of 1.24 m 2 .yr.PDF/kg DM.
Figure 5. Impacts on biodiversity per state per kg
DM corn grain (m 2 .yr.PDF/kg DM corn grain)
3.3 Land use impacts related to milk production
Figure 6. Land use impacts on biodiversity and contribution
to the national corn grain production per state
(m 2 .yr.PDF/kg DM corn grain)
When accounting for a national production of 1 kg of milk, overall results indicate a large variation of
land use area requirements (in m 2 .yr/kg milk) across states. Considering all types of crop in the feed, California,
Wisconsin and New York share the largest total land use area requirement to produce 1 kg milk at the
national level. This result is driven by these states’ large contribution to national milk production of 22%,
13% and 6.5% respectively (shown in Figure 7).
Results in terms of land use impacts on biodiversity are shown in the variable width graph presented in
Figure 8. California requires a larger land area for producing 1 kg of milk at the national level, and shows a
greater share of the national-level impact, which is mainly due to a large national milk production share.