Collaborative research enhances dairy sustainability through circular economy principles
15 May 2024
Senior Lecturer Alejandro Gallego-Schmid and Research Assistant Raphael Tarpani have collaborated with research units at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) and The University of Manchester, resulting in the publication of an article. The article, published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, evaluates how circular economy principles can enhance the environmental sustainability of dairy production.
This paper is the result from Eduardo Entrena-Barbero's three-month research stay at the Tyndall Centre in Manchester in 2022. Senior Lecturer Alejandro Gallego-Schmid was approached by the BIOGROUP from the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) earlier that year to collaborate on investigating how circular economy strategies can reduce the environmental impacts of dairy production. This culminated in a manuscript presenting a framework for integrating circularity principles into dairy farming practices.
The framework developed can be applied to any dairy production farm. For Galician milk production, the Composite Dairy Farm Index (CDF) revealed homogeneity among farms due to similar production models and geographic location. However, it also indicated areas for improvement, such as feed autonomy and local economy support, which warrant further study and evaluation.
- Read the publication: Integrating circularity as an essential pillar of dairy farm sustainability.