Activities

- For milk, the value chain includes the farm, transport to the dairy plant, processing at the plant, packaging and the distribution of the milk to market centres and supermarkets.
For meat, the value chain includes the farm, transport to the slaughterhouse, slaughter, cutting and packaging, and distribution to central markets and retail outlets.

- The environmental characterisation analysis was carried out using life-cycle analysis software.

- The project and the results obtained were disseminated, taking into account the different audiences of interest both within and outside the study.

Context

Including environmental criteria in cattle farming and primary sector activities in general is on the rise. Climate change, European environmental policy and social pressure, which increasingly demands greener products, are the main reasons why the livestock sector is becoming increasingly aware of environmental issues and the need to measure the environmental footprint of its products.
The RUMPRINT operational group has channelled this need by quantifying the environmental footprint of the complete farm-to-retail production cycle of milk from El Baix Empordà Cattle Breeders’ Cooperative and meat from the Viñas Group.
To do this, it applied a science-based methodology harmonised in all EU countries called the Environmental Footprint (EF), which was developed by the European Commission and is currently in the testing phase, after the implementation of European environmental policies aimed at giving competitive advantages to more environmentally friendly products (e.g. through eco-labelling).
The results identified several processes as priorities when working with farms with ruminant livestock; in particular, processes related to producing animal feed, and more particularly commercial feed, are of paramount importance. Other significant processes are slurry management and the use of water, electricity and diesel fuel for farm operations. Efforts to reduce/replace plastics in packaging provide comparatively minor improvements because they contribute little to the environmental impact of the end products available to the consumer.
The EF methodology is generally well adapted to the study of the beef sector environmental footprint in Catalonia, but it also has certain limitations that could be improved.