Linking environmental impact and on-farm animal welfare in the Parmigiano Reggiano dairy system

CONTEXT: Livestock systems, particularly dairy cow systems, are increasingly required to achieve high levels of environmental sustainability and animal welfare simultaneously, driven by evolving consumer demand and policymaker actions. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to evaluate the association between main environmental impact categories, based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach, and scores of animal welfare (AW) parameters, based on the official Italian protocol of welfare assessment. METHODS: Data originated from 231 farms enrolled in the Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium. Each farm was visited to collect data for LCA and scores of AW parameters involving management (MAN), structure and equipment (SAE), and animal-based measures (ABM), combined to produce 0 to 100 scores. Impact categories were global warming (with – GWP, and without – GWP_LUC, land use change), acidification (AP) and eutrophication (EP) potentials, cumulative energy demand (CED) and land occupation (LO). One kg of fat- and protein-corrected milk and 1 m2 of land area were used as functional units (FU). The aforementioned impact values were analysed with a linear model to test the fixed effects of MAN, SAE and ABM residues (3 classes, <15th, 15th -85th and > 85th percentiles), obtained from a preliminary analysis intended to remove the influence of collinearity between and within farm characteristics and FUs. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: For 1 kg FPCM, impacts averaged 1.57 kg CO2-eq (GWP), 1.69 kg CO2-eq (GWP_LUC), 29 g SO2-eq (AP), 12 g PO4-eq (EP), 7.6 MJ (CED) and 1.8 m2/y (LO), whereas per 1 m2 of land area resulted in 0.87 kg CO2-eq (GWP), 0.94 kg CO2-eq (GWP_LUC), 15.9 g SO2-eq (AP), 6.3 g PO4-eq (EP), 4.2 MJ (CED). The animal welfare parameters averaged 78 (MAN and ABM) and 70 (SAE). The GWP, AP, EP and LO per kg milk showed decreasing values moving from worst to the best class of MAN, whereas GWP_LUC tenderly increased. The SAE parameter affected only the on-farm AP and EP per m2, with lowest values at intermediate class. A similar pattern was shown by GWP, EP and CED per kg milk with respect to ABM parameter.SIGNIFICANCE: Results suggest exploitable synergies between impacts and animal welfare score parameters, in particular related to management area, useful to help farmers, advisors and policymakers to increase the global sustainability of the dairy supply chains.