Abstract
In recent years, low-input dairy farming has been receiving significant attention in Japan. It is expected not only to increase the feed self-sufficiency rate and agricultural income, but also to mitigate environmental pollution. “My-pace dairy farming (MPDF)”, which is practiced in the Konsen region in Hokkaido, is a case of low-input dairy farming. MPDF farmers set their overall quality of life above milk production. This study analyzed whether a decline in environmental pollution was caused by the transition from intensive dairy farming to MPDF. The characteristic of this study was the adoption of life cycle assessment (LCA) for determining whether MPDF had advantages for the cutting of environmental pollution. The sample farm for this study was a representative MPDF farm, which abandoned intensive dairy farming for MPDF in 1993. In this LCA, the functional unit was 1 ton of 4% fat corrected milk, and the environmental impact categories were energy consumption, global warming, acidification, eutrophication, ground water quality and surface water quality. The results of this paper were as follows. First, a decrease was observed in all environmental impact categories except ground water quality. Second, the reduction rate of environmental pollution was large in descending order of energy consumption, surface water quality, acidification, eutrophication and global warming. These results indicated that MPDF might have more advantages in the mitigation of environmental pollution than intensive dairy farming.
