Accounting for inter-annual variability of farm activity data for calculation of greenhouse gas emissions in dairy farming

Purpose: This study examines the inter-annual variability of production data in an organic dairy farm and its effect on the estimation of product-related greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) using a detailed material flow model. It is believed that the examination of only one production year may not adequately reflect temporal representativeness and may therefore lead to unreliable results. The current study also provides a method to deal with variability when temporal representativeness cannot be ensured. Methods: All material flows related to milk production from six consecutive milk years in an organic dairy farm in northern Germany were analysed. The milk yield of the 75 to 91 cows varied between 5418 and 7102 kg energy corrected milk (ECM) per cow and year. GHG emissions were estimated using calculation guidelines from the International Dairy Federation (IDF) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Emissions were calculated in the Flow Analysis and Resource Management (FARM) model ensuring mass balances for nitrogen and phosphorous in every subsection of the model. Based on the variability of crop yields, the number of years for representative average data was calculated as well as an uncertainty when only a limited number of years was available...