Relationship between milk intrinsic quality and the environmental impact of dairy farms

This study proposes a simplification of a published multi-criteria evaluation methodology for the production of milk for cheese manufacturing, focusing it on milk quality traits possibly predicted by spectroscopic analyses and CAP’2ER® diagnostics of the environmental impact of the farms. Milk quality scores were constructed by weighing health, nutritional, technological and sensory dimensions of milk quality. Environmental impact scores were constructed by combining CAP’2ER®scores in 5 dimensions: greenhouse gas emissions, eutrophication, soil acidification, space and non-renewable energies consumption and ecosystem biodiversity. The study sample included 15 dairy farms located in the French Massif Central mountains. No correlation has been established between overall milk quality and overall environmental impact scores. High scores for nutritional and biodiversity dimensions and low scores for resource consumption dimension, were associated with farms with a high proportion of grasslands in the usable agricultural area, low stocking rate and low productivity per cow. This demonstrates the importance of defining specific priority objectives, on a farm-by-farm basis, in order to drive changes in agricultural practices. The multi-criteria evaluation model tested here appeared sensitive, but it needs to be tested on a larger scale and in different contexts.