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
way, where the changes were assumed to depend only on type of land where crops are grown. According to
Vleeshouwers and Verhagen (2002), grassland is a carbon sink (i.e. more carbon is stored than released) of
0.52 Mg C/ha/year (191 g CO2/m 2 /year), whereas cropland (arable land) is a carbon source (i.e. more carbon
is released than stored) of 0.84 Mg C/ha/year (308 g CO2/m 2 /year).
Feeding strategies
Two different strategies for cow feeding were given, a ‘local’ and an ‘import’ strategy. In both strategies, the
cows have the same level of feed intake (energy) and milk production. In the ‘local’ strategy all feeds are
grown in Denmark and the concentrated protein feed is based on rapeseed cake and cereals (27% and 16% of
energy requirement, respectively). In the ‘import’ strategy, 70% of the feeds are grown in Denmark and the
concentrated protein feed is based on imported soybean meal and cereals (19% and 24% of energy requirement,
respectively). In both strategies, the main roughage is maize silage (43%) which is supplemented with
grass silage (14%).
3. Results
CF values of animal feeds, based on ALCA, are shown in Table 3a. Roughage is grown on the farm, so there
is no contribution to its CF from transport. Roughage has relative high dry matter (DM) yields per ha, especially
maize silage. Therefore CF of roughage (g CO2e./kg DM) is lower than that of concentrated feeds.
Rapeseed cake and soybean meal are both protein feeds and they are co-products from oilseed production.
GHG emissions from growing and processing rapeseed cake and soybean meal are quite similar, but due to
transport of soybean meal from South America, CF of soybean meal is nearly double that of rapeseed cake,
and much higher if contribution from dLUC is also included.
Table 3a. Carbon footprint (CF) of conventionally grown animal feed – contribution from growing, processing,
transport and LUC, per kg dry matter, based on ALCA
Feedstuff Origin Contribution to CF, g CO2e per kg DM
Growing Processing Transport Total
Land use
m 2 /kg dLUC
Grass silage The farm 318 71
DM g CO2/kg DM
1) 0 389 1.15 0
Maize silage The farm 147 63 1) 0 210 0.89 0
Barley Denmark 487 11 17 515 2.43 0
Rape seed Denmark/ 310 28 118 456 1.24 0
cake
Germany
Soybean meal Argentina/
Brazil
367 39 422 828 1.83 2288
1
Including diesel used for traction and transport at the farm
Table 3b. Carbon footprint (CF) of conventionally grown animal feed – contribution from growing, processing,
transport and LUC, per kg dry matter, based on CLCA
Feedstuff Origin Contribution to CF, g CO2e per kg DM
Growing Processing Transport Total
Land use
m 2 /kg iLUC
DM g CO2/kg DM
Barley Denmark 528 11 18 557 2.42 346
Rapseed cake Denmark/
Germany
368 0 118 486 2.24 320
Soy bean meal Argentina 150 59 463 672 2.41 345
As can be seen in Table 4, in the attributional calculation (ALCA), there is little difference in GHG emissions
related to growing and processing the mixture of feedstuffs between the two strategies. However, the
inclusion of GHG contribution from transport increases the difference making the ‘local’ strategy a moderately
better choice than ‘import’ strategy. The inclusion of GHG emissions from dLUC increases significantly
the CF of feed in the ‘import’ strategy to a range that is double that in the ‘local’ strategy. As also seen
in Table 4, if calculated based on CLCA there were no differences in the CF of the feed between the ‘local’
and ‘import’ strategy as GHG contribution from iLUC was similar for the two strategies.
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