Dairy farming sustainability: development of an integrated multi-dimensional framework

Sustainability assessment in dairy farming requires approaches capable of simultaneously capturing environmental, social, and economic factors. This pilot study tested the applicability of a multi-dimensional framework for dairy farm sustainability assessment, applied to a set of case-study farms. Agroecosystem services (AES) were evaluated using the Agroecosystem Service Capacity Index, adapted to intensive production context; plant biodiversity was assessed through the Shannon diversity index; socio-economic aspects were analyzed following the guidelines of the Public Goods Tool, and environmental impacts were quantified through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Grassland and semi-natural vegetation provided the highest contributions to biodiversity and regulating services, whereas arable land mainly contributed to provisioning services. Arable land and grassland emerged as the main drivers of AES capacity. Dairy efficiency was associated with improved economic performance without reducing landscape and heritage value while social capital and water management emerged as critical aspects across farms. Environmental impacts expressed per hectare were positively related to AES provision, whereas the opposite trend was observed when impacts were expressed per unit of milk. Results suggest that careful management of marginal areas and grassland may support biodiversity and ecosystem regulating services without compromising productivity or profitability. Although based on a limited number of case-study farms, this study demonstrates the feasibility of an integrated methodological approach for jointly analyzing environmental, social, and ecosystem-service indicators at the farm level, enabling cross-dimensional comparison and providing a basis for future validation and decision-support applications.