A holistic assessment of sustainability in dairy systems in the humid climate of Nort Spain

The aim of this work was to develop a holistic scoring system that would assess aspects related to product quality (ICPs) and the process (ICr) in the milk production from dairy farms on the Cantabrian coast, using the simulation model DairyCant. The scoring system is made up of 66 variables grouped into the indicators: environment (19), soil (9), slurry (11), feed (14) for the ICPs; nutritional (5) and nutraceutical (8) for the ICPr. Each variable within its indicator was scored from 1 to 4 according to its interquartile ranges, assigning a score of 4 to the 25 % of the best valued farms; between 25 % and 50 % a score of 3; between 50 % and 75 % of 2 and more than 75 % of 1. The average score of the indicators that make up each quality index varies from 1 to 4 and in turn defines the category of explotation as improvable (M), fair (R), good (B) and excellent (Ex). The number of participating farms were 54 and corresponded to organic (Eco); conventional grazing (PasCon); grass silage (EHba); corn silage (EMz) and grass silage-corn silage (EHba-EMz). In general, the results showed mean scores of 2.01 for ICPs and 1.99 for ICPr. The percentage of farms in the sample classified as M, R, B and Ex for ICPs and ICPr was 24.124.1 %, 37-35.2 %, 27.8-27.8 % and 11, 1-13 % respectively. Among typologies, 20 % of the Eco farms were classified as B and Ex; 50 % of PasCon; 33.3 % EHba; 45.5 % of EMz and 41.7 % in EHba-EMz for ICPs. 30 % of the Eco farms were classified as R and B; 33.4 % for PasCon; 11.1 % in EHba; 54.6 % for EMz and 66.6 % for EHba-EMz for ICPs.