Jean-Baptiste Dollé has been working for more than 10 years on the climate issue in livestock farming. He initiated the first LIFE programs dedicated to livestock farming and greenhouse gases. He reviews these different projects, their link with Life Green Sheep and the further ramifications to come.
“Work on the evaluation of greenhouse gases began at the Institut de l’Elevage in 2010 with the rise of questions about the climate impact of livestock farming. We quickly made the link between GHG emissions, carbon sequestration and practices, thanks in particular to the databases that existed within livestock advisory organizations. These data allowed us to move from equations and methods to an operational tool. The idea of Cap2er was born at that time. It was then only an excel tool but it already had this vocation to train, educate technicians and breeders. From the outset, we also took care to design a multi-criteria tool integrating other dimensions than carbon: biodiversity, water quality, air quality.
Since then, the successive European programs, in particular Life Carbon Dairy and Life Beef Carbon set up with the bovine milk and meat sectors, have made it possible to create emulation, to be recognized by the institutions (Ministries, Commission) – in particular according to participation in the various COP – and to strengthen adherence to this tool which is now a computer application and is becoming a reference at European level but also beyond livestock farming by integrating crops. We are also continuing to integrate new environmental criteria and issues such as those related to the soil fertility or the use of phytosanitary products.
At the same time, with the support of I4CE and the interprofessions CNIEL, INTERBEV and CNE, we have implemented a Low Carbon Label methodology which makes it possible to certify and promote the GHG savings obtained via CAP2ER. Today, Life Green Sheep is dedicated to sheep farming. It is part of a set of programs that go in the same direction: Life Carbon Farming to consolidate the method and the valuation of carbon credits in agriculture, on a European scale; Climate Farm Demo to widely disseminate low-carbon practices and tools; Climate Neutral Farm piloted by INRAE and focused on assessment methods, etc.
Our common challenge: to continue to disseminate the results of this work, even on farms, which show that economic, technical and environmental efficiency are completely compatible.