Research on environmental, economic, and social sustainability in dairy farming: A systematic mapping of current literature
2020 (English)In: Sustainability, E-ISSN 2071-1050, Vol. 12, no 12, article id 5502Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Dairy cows are able to convert fibrous materials, such as grass, roughage, and by-products from the food industry, into milk and meat, which justifies their role in food production. However, modern dairy farming is associated with major sustainability challenges, including greenhouse gas emissions. In order to develop sustainable future production, it is important to implement existing knowledge and fill knowledge gaps. The aim of this study was to systematically map the scientific literature on environmental, economic, and social sustainability at farm level in dairy farming. Literature published between January 2000 and March 2020 and with the geographical focus on Europe, North America, and Australia-New Zealand was included. In total, the literature search resulted in 169 hits, but after removing duplicates and papers outside the study scope only 35 papers remained. Of these, only 11 dealt with the three dimensions of sustainability, and several of these only mentioned one or two of the dimensions or set them in relation to that/those actually studied. Overall, the selected literature did not clearly explain how aspects of sustainability are interlinked, so possible negative or positive interactions between different aspects of sustainability dimensions remain unidentified
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
MDPI AG , 2020. Vol. 12, no 12, article id 5502
Keywords [en]
Animal welfare, Dairy cow, Ecology, Life cycle assessment, Sustainable production, dairy farming, food production, greenhouse gas, socioeconomic impact, sustainability, Australia, Europe, New Zealand, North America, Animalia
National Category
Natural Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-46800DOI: 10.3390/SU12145502Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85089264512OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-46800DiVA, id: diva2:1460615
Note
Funding details: Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet, SLU; Funding details: 2017-02017; Funding text 1: The Swedish Research Council, Formas, grant number 2017-02017, funded this research. We thank Mattias Lennartsson, librarian at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, for valuable help during the process of developing the search strings.
2020-08-242020-08-242023-06-08Bibliographically approved