Development of a new modelling framework to estimate the C footprint from Basque dairy farms

Abstract

There is world-wide concern for the contribution of dairy farming to global warming. However, there is still a need to improve the quantification of the C-footprint of dairy farming systems under different production systems and locations since most of the studies (e.g at farm-scale or using LCA) have been carried out using too simplistic and generalised approaches. A new modelling approach in order to estimate the C footprint from milk in the Basque Country has been developed. This working paper provides a description of the model and shows a case study for a set of dairy farms in the province of Bizkaia.