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Farm-specific carbon footprinting to the farm gate for agricultural co-products using the OVERSEER® model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2013

D. M. Wheeler ,
S. F. Ledgard  and
M. Boyes
D. M. Wheeler*
Affiliation:
AgResearch, Private Bag 3123, Hamilton, 3240, New Zealand
S. F. Ledgard
Affiliation:
AgResearch, Private Bag 3123, Hamilton, 3240, New Zealand
M. Boyes
Affiliation:
AgResearch, Private Bag 3123, Hamilton, 3240, New Zealand
*
†E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

The user inputs to OVERSEER® Nutrient Budgets (Overseer) allow farm-specific greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to be estimated. Since the development of the original model, life cycle assessment standards (e.g. PAS 2050) have been proposed and adopted for determining GHG or carbon footprints, which are usually reported as emissions per unit of product, for example, per kg milk, meat or wool. New Zealand pastoral farms frequently generate a range of products with different management practices. A robust system is required to allocate the individual sources of GHGs (e.g. methane, nitrous oxide, direct carbon dioxide and embodied carbon dioxide emissions for inputs used on the farm) to each product from a farm. This paper describes a method for allocating emissions to co-products from New Zealand farms. The method requires allocating the emissions, first, to an animal enterprise, separating the emissions between breeding and trading animals, and then allocating to a specific product to give product (e.g. milk, meat, wool, velvet) footprints from the ‘cradle-to-farm-gate’. The meat product was based on live-weight gain. Procedures were adopted so that emissions associated with rearing of young stock used in live-weight gain systems, both as a by-product or a primary product could be estimated. This allows the possibility of total emissions for a meat product to be built up from contributing farms along the production chain.

Keywords

agriculturalcarbon footprintpastoral farminggreenhouse gas emissionslivestock products
Type
Full Paper
Information
animal , Volume 7 , Issue s2: Greenhouse Gases & Animal Agriculture Conference (GGAA 2013), 23rd ‐ 26th June 2013, Dublin, Ireland , June 2013 , pp. 437 - 443
Copyright
Copyright © The Animal Consortium 2013 

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