Environmental assessment of the substitution of imported soybean meal with locally-produced rapeseed meal in dairy cow feed
Résumé
In Europe, dairy cow feed is made up of a large part of forage and a minor part of concentrates that balance the ration and stimulate milk production. In conventional dairy farms, the concentrates usually consist of imported soybean meal with limited traceability. In France, emerging demands for higher standards of traceability, food safety, and environmental protection are prompting the development of alternative milk production systems, involving among others the substitution of imported soybean meal with locally-produced rapeseed meal in dairy cow feed. This paper focuses on the environmental assessment of such a substitution, using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology. Two rations were analyzed, based on either locally-produced rapeseed meal or Brazilian-produced soy meal as concentrates. The system under study included the production and the transport steps of all the ingredients of these two rations. The environmental impacts were expressed with respect to one kg of "energy corrected" milk for both scenarios ("Soybean" and "Rapeseed"). Overall, the "Soybean" scenario appeared more environmentally-efficient than the "Rapeseed" scenario because of a lower consumption of agricultural inputs, lower direct field emissions, and a reduced number of crop management operations.