Situated analysis of food supply, land-use dynamics, and feed-food competition at organic farms with dairy cattle

CONTEXT

The increasing competition for land calls for new perspectives on land-use efficiency. Prioritisation must be discussed, as scientists and policymakers focus on food security with reduced environmental harm. Some farms with dairy cattle may not be resource-inefficient when compared to plant-based production, as generally believed, if the farm purpose and type(s) of land used are considered.

OBJECTIVE

This study aims to provide nuanced and often ignored perspectives on agricultural land-use efficiency and the ways this is assessed, through situated analysis of organic farms with dairy cattle. It considers landscape characteristics, farm designs, land uses, food outputs, weather conditions, and farmer considerations and motivations, to produce context-dependent land-use insights.

METHODS

Using detailed data from four organic case-farms, we quantified the total land use and food output at the farm gate and estimated the land-based feed-food competition through a land-use ratio (LUR). The LUR was used to compare current animal-based or mixed production outputs to potential plant-based food outputs from the same area, while maintaining an organic perspective. The quantitative results were qualified by insights from farmers and observations from multiple farm visits. The characteristics of the analysed farms were A) dairy production on marginal soils, B) regenerative grass-based dairy production, C) feed-no-food mixed livestock-crop system, and D) high-yielding dairy farm with crop production.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

The results showed how a feed-no-food mixed livestock-crop production (C) or dairy production primarily supported by land unsuited for food crop cultivation (A) can be as or more land-use efficient and have lower feed-food competition than a high yielding dairy production (D). The conclusions on efficiency were strongly influenced by the measuring unit, underlying assumptions on what constitutes a healthy agro-ecosystem as well as the fluctuations between years. Most important for the conclusion was the characteristics of the used land, the share of land use assessed suitable for cultivation, and the assumed yields for the estimated alternative pure plant-sourced food productions. Through the situated and mixed method perspectives, we furthermore showed how other relations such as flows of nutrients, nature-care, landscape development and farmers' considerations are relevant.

SIGNIFICANCE

Combining quantitative estimations with qualitative knowledge about farmers and their landscapes bring relations that are often ignored from similar studies into the analyses and provides a nuanced basis for discussion of the relevance of dairy cattle in future food production systems.