ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT OF THE MAIN NORTHERN ITALY BEEF PRODUCTION SYSTEMS USING AN LCA METHODOLOGY

Italian agriculture, included animal breeding, contributes for 7.0% to national greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions and also accounts for 95% of national ammonia emissions. Beef and dairy cattle production systems are considered the first contributors to the environmental impact of livestock sector mainly due to enteric fermentation emissions but also because of the lowest feed conversion rates compared to monogastric species. The Italian beef sector main outputs, young bulls, heifers, cull cows and veal calves were highlighted. This study aims to estimate, using an LCA approach, the environmental impact of the main Italian beef production systems that are: white veal calves, cattle for fattening and cow-calf system. White veal calves system includes a dairy cow-calf producer and stockers where dairy calves are fattened. The fattening system includes the French – Italian and Piedmontese chains. The cow-calf system consists of suckler-calf and calf-to-beef farms. A sample of thirty representative beef specialized farms, were identified thanks to breeders associations and beef chain actors. Each beef production system is analyzed from cradle to the farm exit gate, including both calf-to-weanlings and fattening stage, farm inputs, animal transport. Kilogram of live weight (LW) has been adopted as functional unit (FU). Biophysical allocation has been applied to split impacts among the co-products of the targeted systems. Environmental performances are summarized in the following categories: global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential (AP), eutrophication potential (EP), cumulative energy demand (CED), ecological footprint (EFP). Calf-to-weanlings stage represents the major source of emissions apart from beef production system. Global warming potential values range from 14.28 kgCO2-eq to 23.60 kg CO2-eq per kg LW of French – Italian young bulls and young bulls reared in calf-to-beef farms respectively. Global warming potential values of Piedmontese fattening young bulls range from 17.46 kgCO2-eq to 19.57 kgCO2-eq per kg LW according to the methodology applied. French-Italian young bulls resulted to be the best environmentally-friendly together with the other intensive system, the Piedmontese one, due to the higher birth percentage per suckler cow and cattle for replacement rate collected respectively in the French case study (91%, 21%) and in the Piedmontese one producing 5-months weaners (89%, 6%). An high variability is observed among production systems because of animal category, farm management, feeding system and land use. Results are in the range of those proposed by literature referring to the same animal category. A beef production system based on specialized calf-to-weanlings plus finishing farm seems to be more sustainable than a cow-calf one.