文章基本信息

标题：Dairy Farms and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): The Allocation Criterion Useful to Estimate Undesirable Products
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作者：Elio Romano ; Rocco Roma ; Flavio Tidona 等
期刊名称：Sustainability
印刷版ISSN：2071-1050
出版年度：2021
卷号：13
期号：8
页码：4354
DOI：10.3390/su13084354
语种：English
出版社：MDPI, Open Access Journal
摘要：In this study, the life cycle assessment (LCA) principle was performed to estimate the environmental impact of three dairy farms that operate using different farming systems, namely, conventional (CON), organic (ORG), and high-quality (HQ) modes. In Italy, the typical style of high-quality (HQ) farming is commonly included in the conventional system but is more strictly regulated by the Decree of the Italian Ministry of Health N° 185/1991. Although the farms are not fully representative of each conduct, they showed intrinsic peculiarities, e.g., the cow-culling rate of each system. This rate requires a quantification as it may be related to loss of income. Allocation criteria were applied to attribute the quantities of pollutants to the co-products: wheat, involved in the congruence and number of cows culled, the latter being undesirable and therefore necessary to quantify. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) highlighted that the no-dairy products significantly mitigated (<i>p</i> < 0.05) some of the impacts’ categories. The allocation of culled cows decreased the impacts of the CON and particularly those of the ORG farms when the mass mode was adopted. HQ showed values similar to the results without allocation. Overall, the objective of identifying a “marker” of undesirable products, estimated by the culling rate, was partially achieved.