e-infrastructure Roadmap for Open Science in Agriculture

A bibliometric study

The e-ROSA project seeks to build a shared vision of a future sustainable e-infrastructure for research and education in agriculture in order to promote Open Science in this field and as such contribute to addressing related societal challenges. In order to achieve this goal, e-ROSA’s first objective is to bring together the relevant scientific communities and stakeholders and engage them in the process of coelaboration of an ambitious, practical roadmap that provides the basis for the design and implementation of such an e-infrastructure in the years to come.

This website highlights the results of a bibliometric analysis conducted at a global scale in order to identify key scientists and associated research performing organisations (e.g. public research institutes, universities, Research & Development departments of private companies) that work in the field of agricultural data sources and services. If you have any comment or feedback on the bibliometric study, please use the online form.

You can access and play with the graphs:

Discover all records
Home page

Title

A life cycle assessment of seasonal grass-based and confinement dairy farms

en
Abstract

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a holistic systems approach that aims to assess the environmental impacts (potential pollutants and resource use) of the production of goods and services. The aim of this study was to develop an LCA model to compare contrasting milk production systems, a seasonal pasture-based dairy farm and a confinement dairy farm. The environmental impacts considered were global warming, eutrophication, acidification, land use and non-renewable energy use. The LCA estimated on-farm, off-farm (pollutants and resources associated with the production and supply of purchased farm inputs) and total (on-farm and off-farm) environmental impacts. Environmental impacts were quantified per unit of milk and per unit area. The study only considered two research farms, because high quality data were unavailable for a large number of farms. Thus, this was not a representative LCA comparison. The genetic merit of cows modelled was similar for each system. A total mixed ration was fed in the confinement system and grazed grass was mainly fed in the grass-based system. Research data were used to confirm simulated dry matter intake (DMI) and predicted enteric CH4 output from simulated DMI. The study found that when expressed per unit of milk and per on-farm area, all total environmental impacts were greater for the confinement system compared to the grass-based system. Per total farm area (on-farm and off-farm area), all environmental impacts except global warming were lower for the grass-based system. The greater environmental impact of the confinement dairy system was due to the greater use of concentrate feed and the longer manure storage period. Scenario modelling demonstrated that there is potential to decrease the environmental impact of dairy systems, particularly the confinement system, by reducing the use of concentrate ingredients with a high environmental impact and by storing manure in solid systems. Scenario modelling also showed that assumptions regarding the carbon cycle should be clearly outlined when assessing milk production systems and that standardisation of LCA allocation procedures is required. This LCA study is one of the few to directly compare the environmental impact of a grass-based and a confinement dairy system. However direct comparisons are needed, using an LCA methodology such as described in this paper, and using data from a greater number of farms so that each system is better represented thereby ensuring a robust comparison of the two systems on a regional or national basis. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

en
Year
2012
en
Country
  • IE
Organization
  • TEAGASC_Irish_Agr_&_Food_Dev_Author (IE)
  • Natl_Univ_Ireland (IE)
Data keywords
  • research data
en
Agriculture keywords
  • farm
en
Data topic
  • information systems
  • modeling
en
SO
AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS
Document type

Inappropriate format for Document type, expected simple value but got array, please use list format

Institutions 10 co-publis
  • TEAGASC_Irish_Agr_&_Food_Dev_Author (IE)
  • Natl_Univ_Ireland (IE)
uid:/MX7G6S76
Powered by Lodex 8.20.3
logo commission europeenne
e-ROSA - e-infrastructure Roadmap for Open Science in Agriculture has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 730988.
Disclaimer: The sole responsibility of the material published in this website lies with the authors. The European Union is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.