Price volatility and GHG emissions analysis on smaller cattle herds typical for the pre-Alpine region, the example of Slovenia

Agricultural input and output prices have become extremely volatile in recent years and the global meat industry faces sustainability challenges related to climate change, resource competition, environmental regulations, animal welfare concerns, consumer preferences and industry policies. Additionally, the economic situation of cattle fattening farms has been significantly impacted by two major shocks: the COVID-19 pandemic and the onset of the war in Ukraine. This has led to a growing demand for microsimulation tools that can analyse how these conditions affect the operations of agricultural farms and address various technological challenges at both the farm and sector levels. In this paper, we present a farm model to analyse the cattle farming sector for the pre-Alpine region, using Slovenia, a typical example of this region, as a case study. These farms are particularly important from both social and environmental sustainability perspectives, and it is crucial that economic sustainability follows suit. The results of the SiTFarm model show that, on average, farms in the cattle farming sector achieved modest results between 2018 and 2022, with an average gross margin of 9.57 €/h. However, the variability is significant, with a coefficient of variation 0.74. Only 25% of farms exceeded 17.15 €/h, while 25% did not surpass 4.46 €/h. At the sector level, the gross margin decreased by 12% in 2020 but increased by 99% in 2022 compared to the reference year 2018, highlighting the incredible price volatility over a short period. The model results also indicate greenhouse gas emissions ranging from 5.01 to 7.77 kg CO2 eq. per kg of daily body weight gain on the analysed farms. Nearly half of the farms have GHG emissions for cattle fattening exceeding 6.1 kg CO2 eq. per kg daily body weight gain, while about 10% of farms achieve a sustainability target of approximately 5 kg CO2 eq. per kg of daily body weight gain.