SUSTAINABLE MILK PRODUCTION IN DIFFERENT DAIRY CATTLE SYSTEMS AND VALORISATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL CHAIN ON THE BASIS OF ADDED VALUE

Abstract

Aim of this review is to estimate milk yield and predicted methane emissions added values in local and cosmopolitan cow breeds reared in Italian circumstances. Nowadays it is well known that over the next 50 years, the world’s farmers will be asked to produce more food than has been produced in the past thousand years, and in this concern it will be in environmentally sustainable way. The review will higlight the differences between intensive and extensive agricultural systems and this will be discussed and evaluated in dairy cattle production system context. In conclusion, animal genetic resources need to be evaluated not only per unit of output but for other direct and indirect output units related to social and human returns supporting different animal production systems, intensive or extensive ones. The intensive and extensive farming systems are not replaceable to each other, but they should be combined in order to respond to different social and environmental needs, so, to define the best sustainable production system. Moreover, both systems should also consider the modern demands that nowadays agriculture requires as, guarantee for food security. Therefore each system, intensive or extensive, should improve the animal products technological characteristics and at the same time reduce the carbon footprint