Comparison of frameworks for defining land occupation considering on-farm and off-farm feed production on Italian dairy farms

/kg). This large variability indicates that LO largely depends on farm management and adopted animal feeding strategies. Moreover, half of the milk production was linked to the purchased feeds. We found positive correlations between all off-farm LO approaches and N surplus (r = 0.45 to r = 0.73), supporting previous studies suggesting that concentrated animal agriculture, in which the fulfillment of the animal's needs has been delegated to purchased feeds, is the main source of nitrogen surplus on farmlands. The LO per unit of production can be reduced by increasing on-farm feed production, particularly protein components, and to a lesser extent by valorizing byproducts, while not increasing the on-farm N surplus and carbon footprint.