Over 6 billion liters of Canadian milk wasted since 2012

IF 6.6 2区经济学 Q1 ECOLOGY

Ecological Economics Pub Date : 2024-10-05 DOI:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108413

Thomas Elliot , Benjamin Goldstein , Sylvain Charlebois

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Canada's dairy supply management system provides milk year-round but unnecessarily disposes of overproduction. A lack of transparent data on discarded milk means that the scale of this issue is unknown. This hinders actions to mitigate the potentially large environmental, economic and nutritional costs of avoidable, on-farm milk waste. Here we estimate the volume of surplus milk discarded on farms using a material flow analysis approach, and assess the related environmental and nutritional costs. By our estimates, over 6.8 billion liters of raw milk vanished from Canadian dairy farms since 2012 (totaling a value of $6.7 billion CAD). We calculate this is equivalent to 8.4 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions and enough milk for 4.2 million people (11 % of the Canadian population) annually. We suggest increasing transparency on the volume overproduction, reducing incentives for farmers to overproduce, and updating quotas to reflect shifting dietary needs as actions to align the Canadian dairy sector with broader food-system sustainability objectives.

查看原文本刊更多论文

自 2012 年以来，加拿大浪费了超过 60 亿升牛奶

加拿大的乳品供应管理系统全年提供牛奶，但却不必要地处理了过量生产的牛奶。缺乏有关废弃牛奶的透明数据意味着这一问题的规模尚不可知。这就阻碍了采取行动，以减轻可避免的牧场牛奶浪费可能造成的巨大环境、经济和营养成本。在此，我们采用物质流分析方法估算了牧场废弃的剩余牛奶量，并评估了相关的环境和营养成本。根据我们的估算，自2012年以来，加拿大奶牛场有超过68亿升的原奶消失（总价值达67亿加元）。根据我们的计算，这相当于每年减少 840 万吨二氧化碳排放量和足够 420 万人（占加拿大总人口的 11%）饮用的牛奶。我们建议提高超额生产量的透明度，减少对奶农超额生产的激励，并更新配额以反映饮食需求的变化，从而使加拿大乳制品行业与更广泛的食品系统可持续性目标保持一致。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Ecological Economics 环境科学-环境科学

CiteScore

12.00

自引率

5.70%

发文量

313

审稿时长

6 months

期刊介绍： Ecological Economics is concerned with extending and integrating the understanding of the interfaces and interplay between "nature''s household" (ecosystems) and "humanity''s household" (the economy). Ecological economics is an interdisciplinary field defined by a set of concrete problems or challenges related to governing economic activity in a way that promotes human well-being, sustainability, and justice. The journal thus emphasizes critical work that draws on and integrates elements of ecological science, economics, and the analysis of values, behaviors, cultural practices, institutional structures, and societal dynamics. The journal is transdisciplinary in spirit and methodologically open, drawing on the insights offered by a variety of intellectual traditions, and appealing to a diverse readership. Specific research areas covered include: valuation of natural resources, sustainable agriculture and development, ecologically integrated technology, integrated ecologic-economic modelling at scales from local to regional to global, implications of thermodynamics for economics and ecology, renewable resource management and conservation, critical assessments of the basic assumptions underlying current economic and ecological paradigms and the implications of alternative assumptions, economic and ecological consequences of genetically engineered organisms, and gene pool inventory and management, alternative principles for valuing natural wealth, integrating natural resources and environmental services into national income and wealth accounts, methods of implementing efficient environmental policies, case studies of economic-ecologic conflict or harmony, etc. New issues in this area are rapidly emerging and will find a ready forum in Ecological Economics.