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The environmental impacts of the dairy industry, particularly global warming, are heavily influenced by milk production. Thus, there is an urgent need for farm-level actions and opportunities for improvement, implying mitigation strategies. The aim of this paper is to investigate five possible mitigation actions at the dairy farm and which one the farmers were willing to adopt: management and distribution of livestock manure and fertilizers, anaerobic manure treatment, optimization of the herd composition, feed quality, and heat recovery. A life cycle assessment was conducted on 63 farms using the product environmental footprint approach. The latter was divided into four quartiles, from which four representative farms were selected. For each farm, three scenarios have been analyzed considering the reference impact (reference scenario), the application of the mitigation actions (best-case scenario), and what farmers would implement (realistic scenario). Overall, the most effective mitigation actions in the best-case scenario were anaerobic manure treatment and the management and distribution of livestock manure and fertilizers, showing a potential reduction in total environmental impacts of 7-9% and 6-7%, respectively. Farmers' responses indicated a willingness to implement the latter mitigation strategy better. The optimization of the herd composition, feed quality, and heat recovery reported a range impact reduction between 0.01-5%.

There is a growing awareness that fostering the transition toward plant-based diets with reduced meat consumption levels is essential to alleviating the detrimental impacts of the food system on the planet and to improving human health and animal welfare. The reduction in average meat intake may be reached via many possible ways, one possibility being the increased consumption of plant-based meat alternatives (PBMAs). For this reason, in recent years, hundreds of products have been launched on the market with sensory attributes (i.e., taste, texture, appearance, and smell) similar to their animal counterparts; however, these products have often a long list of ingredients and their nutritional values are very different from animal meat. The present review aims to highlight the main opportunities and challenges related to the production and consumption of PBMAs through an interdisciplinary approach. Aspects related to the production technology, nutritional profiles, potential impacts on health and the environment, and the current market and consumer acceptance of PBMAs are discussed. Focusing on the growing literature on this topic, this review will also highlight research gaps related to PBMAs that should be considered in the future, possibly through the collaboration of different stakeholders that can support the transition toward sustainable plant-based diets.

Il capitolo affronta il tema della sostenibilità dell’industria mangimistica evidenziando il sistema mangimistico come parte integrante del ciclo produttivo degli alimenti ed anello di congiunzione tra le produzioni vegetali ed animali. Il mangimificio ha il ruolo principale di valorizzare i sottoprodotti dell’industria molitoria, divenendo parte attiva nella filiera produttiva, non solo da un punto di vista economico, sociale ed ambientale, ma anche come valorizzatore di risorse provenienti da altre filiere produttive in un’ottica di economia circolare. Nel capitolo viene trattato il contesto produttivo italiano legato al mercato dei mangimi, dall’acquisto delle materie prime alla produzione delle varie tipologie di mangimi in funzione delle categorie animali a cui sono destinati. Il sistema mangimistico attuale non è solo un produttore di mangimi, ma occupa una fondamentale funzione di ottimizzatore nell’utilizzo di risorse agro-industriali, di trasferimento di tecnologia, conoscenza e servizi al sistema zootecnico, determinando importanti riflessi positivi di carattere ambientale a livello aziendale, locale e nazionale. La valutazione dell’impronta carbonica di 1 kg di mangime, in rapporto alla provenienza geografica delle materie prime ed alle fonti energetiche impiegate nei processi tecnologici, evidenzia come l’attività del mangimificio abbia un impatto molto basso rispetto alla produzione degli input necessari ed ai relativi trasporti in entrata ed uscita al mangimificio stesso e come le ricadute ambientali positive dell’industria mangimistica meritino attenzione e riconoscimento. Il mangimificio svolge, inoltre, un ruolo economico-sociale molto importante come strumento di sviluppo del territorio, necessario all’economia e alle produzioni animali. In conclusione viene mostrata l’analisi SWOT con cui è possibile individuare i punti di forza, di debolezza, le opportunità e le minacce dell’intero sistema mangimistico.

The utilization of animal donors of rumen fluid for laboratory experiments can raise ethical concerns, and alternatives to the collection of rumen fluids from live animals are urgently requested. The aim of this study was to compare the fresh rumen fluid (collected at slaughter, W) with that obtained from a continuous fermenter (RCF) and three methods of rumen fluid preservation (refrigeration, R, chilling, C, and freeze-drying, FD). The fermentability of different inoculum was evaluated by three in vitro tests (neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and crude protein (CP) degradability and gas production, NDFd, RDP and GP, respectively) using six feeds as substrates. Despite the two types of inoculum differed in terms of metabolites and microbiota concentration, the differences in vitro fermentability between the two liquids were less pronounced than expected (-15 and 20% for NDFd and GP when the liquid of fermenter was used and no differences for RDP).Within each in vitro test, the data obtained from rumen and from fermenter liquids were highly correlated for the six feeds, as well as betweenWand R (r: 0.837-0.985; p < 0.01). The low fermentative capacity was found for C and, particularly, FD for liquids. RCF could be used to generate inoculum for in vitro purposes and short-term refrigeration is a valuable practice to manage inoculum.