Learnings from an FAO-led international process to develop LCA guidelines for small ruminants: a LEAP partnership initiative.

Methodology and guidelines for quantifying greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and fossil fuel demand from sheep and goat supply chains covering the system boundary of the cradle-to-primary-processing-gate were developed by an international technical group. Key learnings included the need to recognize and account for 1) the global diversity of small ruminant production and processing systems, 2) the potential for limited data availability, and 3) several main areas of methodology that have potential to change the final results. Two critical areas of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) based methodology identified were the importance of determining feed requirements by animals and the methods for handling multi-functional processes including allocation. On-farm, biophysical allocation based on relative feed requirements was recommended for allocation between animal species sharing the same feed sources and for allocation between meat, milk and/or fiber. However, sensitivity analysis of different allocation methods should be carried out and results presented to illustrate the effects on results.