The MILKEY project

Decision support system for sustainable and GHG optimized Milk production in Key European areas MILKEY

2020-2023 2 216 928 € Coordinator: Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (B. Amon, Coord.) SAS contact: Aurélie Wilfart SAS research axis: Integrated Assessment Web site Keywords: Dairy production, GHG mitigation, sustainability, Decision support system

Research

Context and Objectives

European dairy production systems (DPS) face many challenges across the three pillars (3P) of sustainability. The MILKEY project will develop a holistic approach for achieving 3P sustainability of DPS targeted to key European regions. Greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation is a core aim of MILKEY, along with analysis of other environmental impacts and of economic and social factors that influence the functioning of this sector.

MILKEY will:

• establish a unified analytical protocol to facilitate comparison and synthesis of GHG emission mitigation and sustainability assessments across the DPS case studies and key European regions.
• use qualitative methods such as in-depth interviews with farmers and a variety of quantitative tools, such as life cycle assessment and economic-biophysical modelling.
• focus on assessing 3P sustainability interactions and mitigation potentials for key European areas. It will assess flexible concepts for sustainable milk production and identify co-benefits and trade-offs.

Methogology

The MILKEY projet will follow this workplan:

Expected results

MILKEY will approach the challenge of measuring and reporting actual reductions in GHG emissions by developing a biophysical-economic tool at the farm level that includes the necessary information about the most promising mitigation options for reporting purposes and makes them directly applicable to an individual farm.

SAS Staff Involved

Permanent staff: Aurélie Wilfart, Nouraya Akkal-Corfini
Non permanent staff: Vincent Baillet

Partners

• Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (ATB) / www.atb-potsdam.de
• University of Zielona Góra (UZG) / https://www.iis.uz.zgora.pl/
• Poznan University of Life Sciences (PULS) / https://puls.edu.pl/en/
• Agricultural University of Athens (AUA) / https://www2.aua.gr/en
• Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (ILVO) / https://www.ilvo.vlaanderen.be/language/en-US/EN/Home.aspx
• Irish Food and Agriculture Development Authority (TEAGASC) / www.teagasc.ie
• School of Agriculture and Food Science, University College Dublin (UCD) / https://www.ucd.ie/agfood/
• French Livestock Institute (IDELE) / http://idele.fr/
• Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO) / https://nibio.no/en

Laureate of the joint call of three ERA-NET projects (FACCE ERA-GAS, ERA-NET SusAn and ICT-AGRI 2) on novel technologies, solutions and systems to reduce GHG emissions in animal production systems.

For France, the funding agency is the French National Agency for Research (ANR).