Walmsley M., Liu X., Varbanov P., Klemes J., 2015, Environmental Footprint Comparison amongst Dairy, Grain and Meat Products in California, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 43, 109-114.
A more holistic environmental footprint assessment methodology is applied to the production of four different types of food products from the California Central Valley agricultural area. Resource and energy supply chains from farm to consumer are evaluated for two animal based food products (milk powder and ground beef) and two grain based products (fried rice and wheat bread). Intensive farming and irrigation practices are assumed to apply to the food production systems. The work supports previous studies that grain based food products meet human nutritional needs far more efficiently than animal based ones like meat and dairy. As fossil fuel energy resources, arable land and clean water for irrigation become less available due to resource depletion and competition from other activities, significant environmental footprint reduction is possible with a shift to a more grain based low environmental footprint diet.
