Suprem Milk

SUPREM-MILK is a PRIMA-funded project focused on enhancing the sustainability and resilience of dairy value chains across the Mediterranean region. The consortium brings together partners from Italy, Türkiye, Egypt, Morocco, France and Spain, with project activities focusing on dairy production systems in Egypt, Morocco and Türkiye. The project was launched to address some of the key challenges affecting dairy supply chains in Southern Mediterranean countries, including climate change, dependence on external inputs, increasing pressure on natural resources, and the need to improve circularity, self-sufficiency and production efficiency. As part of the project, six pilot farms—including both dairy cattle and buffalo farms—were selected to represent different production systems, feeding strategies, productivity levels and farm management practices.

The strategic objective of the project is to support the transition towards more sustainable, resilient and resource-efficient dairy value chains across the Mediterranean through a quantitative assessment of the environmental impacts associated with different production systems. More specifically, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study aimed to:

· quantify the environmental impacts of milk production in the pilot farms;

· establish a comparative baseline across dairy farms in Egypt, Morocco and Türkiye;

· account for local differences in livestock species, climate conditions, feeding strategies, technologies and farm management practices;

· identify the main environmental impact hotspots;

· support the definition of targeted strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

By achieving these objectives, the project will provide farmers and stakeholders across the dairy value chain with robust scientific evidence to improve environmental performance and strengthen the resilience of local production systems.

eLoop carried out the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of milk production across the six pilot farms, applying an attributional cradle-to-gate approach in accordance with ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 standards. The study included defining the goal and scope of the assessment, developing dedicated LCA models for both dairy cattle and buffalo milk production, and collecting and validating farm-level data through structured questionnaires. A key aspect of the project involved harmonising data collected from the three participating countries by integrating primary data with secondary datasets, conversion factors and appropriate proxies to ensure consistency and comparability. The LCA model included the assessment of all major production inputs, including feed, on-farm crop production, fertilisers, energy, water, fuels and other agricultural inputs, together with the direct modelling of emissions from enteric fermentation and manure management. The assessment also enabled a comparison of the six pilot case studies, the identification of the main environmental hotspots and the development of recommendations aimed at improving environmental performance. To enable a consistent comparison among farms with different productivity levels and milk composition, the study adopted 1 kg of Fat and Protein Corrected Milk (FPCM) as the functional unit. The assessment was developed using openLCA 2.4, the ecoinvent 3.11 database and the Environmental Footprint 3.1 impact assessment method.

The assessment revealed considerable variability in climate impacts across the six case studies. Results for the Climate Change impact category ranged from 0.80 kg CO₂eq per kg FPCM for the dairy cattle farm assessed in Egypt to 3.42 kg CO₂eq per kg FPCM for the buffalo production system in Türkiye, highlighting the influence of different production systems, management practices and local conditions. The analysis identified feed production and procurement, enteric fermentation, herd productivity and manure management as the main environmental hotspots. Although generally less significant, diesel consumption, agricultural inputs and chemical products also contributed to environmental impacts in specific production contexts. These findings provide a solid basis for identifying targeted improvement strategies, particularly with regard to feed formulation, herd productivity, on-farm feed self-sufficiency and methane emission reduction. The project contributes to building more resilient dairy value chains across Southern Mediterranean countries by providing farmers, technical experts and decision-makers with science-based tools to support sustainability. In particular, it increases awareness of the environmental impacts associated with milk production, strengthens Life Cycle Assessment expertise within local livestock sectors, enhances the decision-making capacity of the pilot farms and supports the adoption of more sustainable production practices. Furthermore, the project promotes scientific collaboration between European and Mediterranean countries, contributes to improving farm self-sufficiency and resilience by reducing dependence on external inputs, and enables meaningful comparisons between dairy cattle and buffalo production systems operating under different production conditions. From a business perspective, the study provides a robust quantitative foundation for defining targeted improvement actions, strengthening the environmental positioning of dairy farms and supporting the development of future sustainability, innovation and communication strategies based on scientifically validated data.