sustainability assessment of dairy production systems: integrating ecological, economical and ethical criteria
Abstract
Project aims: 1) Integrative evaluation of selected indicators for ecological, economical and social-ethical sustainability criteria for farms representing the predominant dairy production systems in Austria. This will include: (a) Greenhouse gas emissions (carbon footprint), water consumption and pollution (water footprint) and biodiversity (diversity of species, genetics and habitats) as elements of the ecological pillar of sustainability. In addition to these, further criteria will be evaluated which are partially connected with the main criteria given above: gas emissions relevant to the ecosystem (ammonia and nitric oxides), nitrate leaching related to acidification and eutrophication, consumption of fossil resources, agricultural land used per unit of product and humus-balance (changes in soil organic carbon). (b) The short and long term competitive capability will be considered in the study as an important element of the economical pillar of sustainability. This will be evaluated based on suitable key figures such as the gross margin, profit, financial output per hour etc. (c) Social-ethical elements, such as (i) aspects at the interface to socio-economical indicators (e.g. economical return per person hour); (ii) depending on the outcome of the first expert workshop further aspects will be included, such as indicators related to animal welfare (e.g. proportion of time spent on pasture etc.) 2) Installation of a farm-survey-network, which will allow access to relevant data. The network shall cover the predominant Austrian dairy production systems, taking into account regional specificity, production intensity etc. The network is also essential for achieving goals 4 to 6. 3) Compilation of a consolidated catalogue of criteria and indicators for evaluation of sustainability of dairy production systems as a result of an expert workshop as well as generation of a matrix for these indicators. 4) Indicators generated under goal 3 are quantified for typical and standardised dairy production systems. These key figures for the dairy production systems covered herein may serve as a scientifically sound basis for decision making, e.g. during the development of future subsidy programmes. 5) Evaluation of the overall sustainability of dairy production systems in Austria on a short-, mid- and long-term perspective. The respective information will be provided by quantitative and qualitative reporting. 6) Appropriate procedures will be derived and suggested which aim at the optimisation of the dairy production systems in terms of their overall sustainability. These procedures will be differentiated concerning their applicability for (a) the majority of Austrian dairy production systems investigated herein and (b) for individual case farms. Certain procedures will be identified, which are likely to show particularly homogeneous, heterogeneous or contrasting results for important criteria and indicators in a majority of farms.
keywords milk production sustainability criteria ecology economics
Publikationen
Project staff
Werner Zollitsch
Univ.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Werner Zollitsch
werner.zollitsch@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-93211, 99101, 99111
Project Leader
01.12.2011 - 31.12.2013
Stefan Hörtenhuber
Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Stefan Hörtenhuber
stefan.hoertenhuber@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-93229
Project Staff
01.12.2011 - 31.12.2013
BOKU partners
External partners
Federal Institute for Agricultural Research (BAAWI)
PD Dr. Leopold Kirner
partner
Research Institute of Organic Agriculture, Austria
Dr. Thomas Drapela
partner