Sustainable futures for the Costa Rica dairy sector: optimising environmental and economic outcomes

中南美洲低质量和低生产率牧场畜牧业的扩大是砍伐森林的主要原因，并导致巨大的环境压力，包括自然资本损失、空气和水污染以及温室气体排放。贸易自由化正在对中美洲国家的畜牧业部门造成重大结构性变化，对农民和农村社区的生计、土地使用政策目标、气候变化、空气和水质量以及旅游业等依赖自然资源的其他部门产生深远影响。在这个多参与者的概念验证项目中，我们将整合测量和挖掘的数据来模拟哥斯达黎加乳制品行业潜在转型的一系列情景，以便为乳制品和更广泛的土地利用行业提出有希望的可持续集约化途径，以平衡社会经济和环境结果。在这项建议中，我们汇集了一个跨学科的研究团队，他们拥有经过验证的专业知识，能够提供证据，支持制定实用和成本效益高的畜牧业生产战略。该项目财团得到了哥斯达黎加一个主导乳制品行业的主要工业合作伙伴的补充，该合作伙伴占乳制品加工的80%，以及一个由农业和环境政策制定者、其他农业行业部门机构和农民组成的利益相关者小组。我们的共同专长包括土壤科学；测量和缓解扩散到空气和水中的污染物；碳足迹和生命周期评估；农林和畜牧业生产；社会经济学；农业经济学和推广，以及政策制定。这种独特的技能组合对于实现我们的目标和实现全球气候变化框架和官方发展援助目标以及建立提供整体解决方案所需的跨学科能力至关重要，以促进中美洲LMIC国家未来畜牧业的可持续土地利用。该项目的主要目的是以哥斯达黎加乳制品部门为案例研究，为热带地区的粮食生产开发可持续的未来。我们开发的方法将是一个典范，可以推广到其他农业部门、其他中美洲国家和其他地区。为了实现这一目标，项目组将整理牲畜数量、部门温室气体排放趋势的现有数据，以及关于能源、水、树木-牧场-动物关系、遗传和养分输入和输出的其他信息，并确定它们的稳健性和对项目将开发的模型的适用性。我们将在CATIE奶牛场采用测量温室气体和氨排放到空气中以及硝酸盐和磷到水中损失的最佳方案，然后沿着强化梯度将这些方案应用于三个不同规模的商业奶牛场。为了建立该项目的遗产，我们将培训哥斯达黎加和其他中美洲研究人员一系列弥漫污染测量方法，以及碳足迹、生命周期评价和农场规模建模。挖掘和测量的数据将用于计算CATIE和三个商业奶牛场系统(及其产品)的环境和经济平衡，并模拟对代表集约化趋势的特定管理做法和技术的敏感性，以及探索更可持续的集约化战略。然后，测量和建模的数据将被用来扩大和评估国家和全球一级环境和生产/经济目标之间特定乳制品发展途径的潜在权衡和协同作用。这些调查结果将通过项目结束时在哥斯达黎加举行的最后一期讲习班，为主要行为者(农业部、环境部和能源部、国家奶业商会)提供建议。

Expansion of poor quality and low productivity pasture livestock production in Central and Southern America is a major cause of deforestation, and leads to significant environmental pressures including loss of natural capital, air and water pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. Trade liberalization is causing major structural changes to livestock sectors in Central American countries, with profound implications for the livelihoods of farmers and rural communities, land use policy objectives, climate change, air and water quality, and for other sectors such as tourism that are reliant on natural resources. In this multi-actor, proof of concept project we will integrate measurement and mined data to model a range of scenarios of potential transitions for the dairy sector in Costa Rica, in order to propose promising pathways of sustainable intensification for the dairy and wider land use sectors that balance socio-economic and environmental outcomes.In this proposal we bring together an interdisciplinary team of researchers with proven expertise of delivering evidence that supports development of practical and cost-effective strategies for livestock production. The project consortium is complemented by a key industrial collaborator in Costa Rica that dominates the dairy sector, accounting for >80% of the dairy processing, and a stakeholder group comprising policy makers for agriculture and environment, other agriculture industry sector bodies, and farmers. Our joint expertise includes soil science; measurements and mitigation of diffuse pollutants to air and water; carbon footprinting and life cycle assessment; agroforestry and livestock production; socio-economics; agricultural economics and extension, and policy formulation. This unique blend of skills is essential to deliver our objectives and to meet GCRF and ODA goals, and to build the interdisciplinary capacity needed to deliver holistic solutions to promote sustainable land use for future livestock production in Central American LMIC countries.The main aim of this project is to develop sustainable futures for food production in the tropics, using the Costa Rican dairy sector as a case study. The approach we develop will be an exemplar that can be rolled out to other agricultural sectors, to other Central American countries and beyond. To achieve this, the project team will collate existing data of trends in livestock numbers, sectoral greenhouse gas emissions, and other information on energy, water, tree-pasture-animal relations, genetics, and nutrient inputs and outputs, and determine their robustness and suitability for the models the project will develop. We will adopt the best protocols for measuring greenhouse gas and ammonia emissions to air, and nitrate and phosphorus losses to water, on the CATIE dairy farm, and then apply these protocols to three commercial dairy farms of various scales, along an intensification gradient. To build the legacy of the project, we will train Costa Rican and other Central American researchers in a range of diffuse pollution measurement methodologies, as well as in carbon foot-printing, LCA and farm-scale modelling. Mined and measured data will be used to calculate environmental and economic balances for the CATIE and three commercial dairy farming systems (and their products), and model sensitivity to specific management practices and technologies that would be representative of trends in intensification, as well as explore more sustainable intensification strategies. The measured and modelled data will then be used to scale up and assess the potential trade-offs and synergies for specific dairy development pathways between environmental and productive/economic goals at the national and global level. These findings will be used to advise key actors (Ministries of Agriculture and Environment & Energy, National Milk Chamber - CNPL), via a final Workshop in Costa Rica at the end of the project.