Investigating the Carbon Footprint of Italian Specialized Livestock Farms and its Drivers

Abstract The livestock sector is a significant contributor to climate change, as it is a direct source of greenhouse gases and an indirect source of gas and carbon emissions through the processes of land use and feed production. The objective of the present study is to contribute to the ongoing debate concerning the economic and environmental performance of the specialised livestock sector. The study analyses the relationship between economic variables associated with the management of livestock farms and the value of the carbon footprint. The latter is a variable representing environmental sustainability at the level of individual farms. The analysis is based on data extracted from the Italian section of the EU Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) database and through the implementation of a multilevel mixed-effects regression model on a balanced panel dataset. The correlation between utilisation of agricultural inputs and emissions demonstrated a positive elasticity, which proved to be statistically significant. The analysis by farming types indicates that the most significant environmental impact is attributed to beef cattle farming, while poultry farming is found to be the least contributing factor to the carbon footprint of production units. Interactions with the age of farmers reveal that, all other things being equal, farms run by young people do not have significantly different average emissions compared to traditional farms. However, interactions with the main production factors are highly significant, suggesting differential carbon footprint performances according to the type of inputs.