In The Netherlands, compared to 1990, the emission of greenhouse gases (CO2, methane and helium) needs to be reduced by 49% in 2030 and by 95% in 2050. "Dutch Buyers of agrarian products are also pressing for this, as they can set themselves apart with products having a lower carbon footprint", says Frank Waijers, director of Duynie Feed Netherlands. "A product’s carbon footprint is becoming part of the ‘license to produce’, and hence a purchase argument for buyers. Buyers are asking livestock farmers to provide insight into the carbon footprint of milk and meat. In that way they can demonstrate that supplied products have a lower environmental impact." Waijers expects that products produced in an environmentally-friendly manner will fetch higher prices in the future. For a number of products, such as milk, improving e.g. the carbon footprint is already translating into higher prices.
Examining products
To help livestock farmers reduce the carbon footprint of milk and meat, Duynie is examining all its co-products in terms of environmental impact. "We started with frequently used co-products: pressed pulp, brewer’s grains, potato cuttings, potato peel, and pre-fried potato chips. Other co-products may follow", says Waijers.
The products have been examined by Blonk Consultants, a consultancy in the field of environment, sustainability, food and health. The environmental impact is measured by means of the Life Cycle Analysis, or LCA. The LCAs are calculated using the internationally recognised calculation rules as defined in PEFCR (Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules) and GFLI (Global Feed LCA Institute). This method calculates a product’s impact on the environment, taking account of land use, eutrophication, groundwater depletion, particulates, acidification and climate change.
"The carbon footprint of agrarian products is the sum of greenhouse gas emissions, formulated as CO2 equivalents. Duynie’s research shows that the investigated co-products have a lower carbon footprint than nutritionally comparable livestock feed. "Co-products often have a lower CO2 footprint than concentrates, because the CO2 emissions involved in cultivation and processing are not counted in the footprint calculation, while these are included with respect to cultivating crops as raw materials for livestock feed", Waijers explains.
A co-product is the result of the production of beverages, foodstuffs or biofuels. International calculation rules assign the CO2 emissions resulting from cultivation and processing to the main product. For potato cuttings, the main product is potato chips, for example. “Brewer’s grains are an exception, with 1% of the CO2 equivalents of the emissions due to cultivation and beer brewing assigned to brewer’s grains", says Waijers.
Higher price for PlanetProof milk
The first milk cartons bearing the certificate On the way to PlanetProof appeared on supermarket shelves in late 2018. Dairy farmers who supply PlanetProof milk receive a higher price from their dairy buyer. To award this certificate, the Dutch ‘KringloopWijzer’ (KLW) calculates the carbon footprint of one litre of milk. "The dairy farming sector is leading the way in terms of rewarding a lower carbon footprint. The KLW calculates the emission of methane, helium and carbon dioxide at the company level, both on-farm and off-farm, so including the LCA", says Michel de Haan, project leader of Wageningen Livestock Research. "This makes the carbon footprint per litre of milk transparent."
Feed suppliers support dairy farmers by pressing for a lower carbon footprint. "For our PlanetProof customers, we compile feed rations that have a lower carbon footprint. This enables them to remain below the threshold of 1200 grams of CO2 equivalent per kilogram of FPCM milk", says Robert Meijer, manager of Marketing and Communication Ruminants at ForFarmers. In his view, both feed producers and livestock farmers can contribute to lower greenhouse gas emissions. "To meet the targets of the climate agreement, ForFarmers increasingly opts for raw materials with a lower carbon footprint to produce compound feed. This year we already expect to achieve a reduction of 10% on average in the CO2 emissions per kilo of FPCM milk produced by our customers, compared to 2019."
Practical measures
Livestock farmers can reduce their CO2 footprint, for example by increasing the feed efficiency and milk production per cow, by increasing fodder production per hectare, and by improving the fodder quality. “Feeding grass with lower NDF content and corn with more starch help lower methane emissions. More milk produced from fodder also helps, since concentrates have a higher carbon footprint than fodder", says Meijer. Meijer explains that environmental targets can sometimes be at odds with each other. “To obtain more protein from your land, you need a higher proportion of grass in the ration. But to lower ammonia emissions and the carbon footprint, having more corn in the ration is more effective”.
For Meijer, including moist co-products in particular is certainly an option as well. "Remember that drying feed also consumes energy and thereby increases the carbon footprint. However, not all livestock farmers can switch to feeding co-products, because it isn’t suitable for all rations. Besides, the co-products market is supply-driven, and the available volume is limited".
According to Duynie Feed, the volume of co-products is growing, since biofuel producers and foodstuff processors are expanding in north-western Europe. "This is a growth region due to the stability, a favourable climate, fertile land and a high knowledge level among agrarians and chain partners. And more processing means a growing supply of co-products", says Waijers. "Due to environmental taxes and CO2 levies, product drying will decrease, which also increases the volume of moist co-products".
Databases livestock carbon footprint
"Dutch animal feed firms have been developing systems to calculate the environmental impact of agrarian products for at least ten years", says Henk Flipsen, director of the Dutch association for the animal feed industry (Nederlandse Vereniging Diervoederindustrie, Nevedi). Nevedi compiled a list showing the carbon footprint of livestock feed raw materials and co-products. This helps feed advisers and livestock farmers to choose compound feed and co-products with a lower carbon footprint, which reduces the environmental impact of milk and meat. But a Dutch database is not enough, says Flipsen. "The carbon footprint of all feed raw materials from anywhere in the world should be reported in a single database, based on harmonised, standardised and valid calculation rules. This will increase the reliability of sums and of calculating favourable raw materials compared to more impactful options.” The Global Feed LCA lnstitute (GFLI) was established in 2019, which works with an LCA animal feed database. The GFLI database contains data from across Europe, Canada and the US, as well as the LCAs of 1500 animal feed raw materials. Over the coming years, this will be expanded with the LCAs of more than 15,000 raw materials, also specified in terms of origin. "The GFLI database will become the international go-to source to calculate rations with a view to environmental impact", Flipsen believes.
Generally speaking, livestock feed based on a large proportion of co-products has a lower carbon footprint than nutritionally comparable concentrates.
(Source: Boerderij.nl)