Understanding stakeholder perspectives on decision support tools for managing emissions on livestock farms

Globally, livestock production is a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which are the primary driver of climate change. To assess the expected needs for Decision Support Tools (DST) related to GHG emissions in global livestock production at the farm level, the perspectives of stakeholders were surveyed. Direct communication with stakeholder groups in various countries was established to explore their experiences with existing GHG-based DST at the farm scale. Collecting this information was crucial to understand the current demand for integrating GHG and ammonia emissions estimation into the decision-making process at the farm scale across different countries. Additionally, the study aimed to evaluate and present the potential for utilizing these DST at the farm scale in the near term. Understanding the requirements of potential users can offer valuable insights to developers of emissions-based decision support tools, enabling them to improve existing tools and align them better with users’ needs. The majority of respondents were livestock farm advisors (80 out of 116), followed by livestock farmers (23 respondents), inventory compilers (9 respondents), and authority officials/policymakers (4 respondents). The survey respondents represented various countries, including Greece, Poland, Germany, Austria, France, and Chile. While most stakeholders who responded were aware of software-based DS tools, less than half of them actually used such tools. Furthermore, even fewer respondents reported using software-based DS tools that estimate GHG and ammonia emissions at the livestock farm level to incorporate emission reduction in decision-making process. Although the adoption of farm-scale emission-based DST in livestock farming is currently limited, it is clear that farmers who embrace technological developments are aware of the potential environmental impact of their farms. In fact, 87.7% of respondents expressed interest in being informed about software-based DS tools that estimate and utilize GHG and ammonia emissions in decision-making. Moreover, 59.6% of stakeholders expressed a willingness to participate in a future process for developing software-based DS tools that estimate and incorporate GHG and ammonia emissions in decision-making. This highlights the need for continued development and promotion of standardized tools across all participating countries.