IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v227y2025ics0921800924003100.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Over 6 billion liters of Canadian milk wasted since 2012

Author

Listed:
  • Elliot, Thomas
  • Goldstein, Benjamin
  • Charlebois, Sylvain

Abstract

Canada's dairy supply management system provides milk year-round but unnecessarily disposes of overproduction. A lack of transparent data on discarded milk means that the scale of this issue is unknown. This hinders actions to mitigate the potentially large environmental, economic and nutritional costs of avoidable, on-farm milk waste. Here we estimate the volume of surplus milk discarded on farms using a material flow analysis approach, and assess the related environmental and nutritional costs. By our estimates, over 6.8 billion liters of raw milk vanished from Canadian dairy farms since 2012 (totaling a value of $14.9 billion CAD). We calculate this is equivalent to 8.4 million tonnes of CO2 emissions and enough milk for 4.2 million people (11 % of the Canadian population) annually. We suggest increasing transparency on the volume overproduction, reducing incentives for farmers to overproduce, and updating quotas to reflect shifting dietary needs as actions to align the Canadian dairy sector with broader food-system sustainability objectives.

Suggested Citation

  • Elliot, Thomas & Goldstein, Benjamin & Charlebois, Sylvain, 2025. "Over 6 billion liters of Canadian milk wasted since 2012," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:227:y:2025:i:c:s0921800924003100
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108413
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800924003100
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108413?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Colin A. Carter & Pierre Mérel, 2016. "Hidden costs of supply management in a small market," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(2), pages 555-588, May.
    2. Kempen, Markus & Witzke, Peter & Pérez Domínguez, Ignacio & Jansson, Torbjörn & Sckokai, Paolo, 2011. "Economic and environmental impacts of milk quota reform in Europe," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 29-52, January.
    3. Elliot, Thomas & Levasseur, Annie, 2022. "System dynamics life cycle-based carbon model for consumption changes in urban metabolism," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 473(C).
    4. Diana Ivanova & Konstantin Stadler & Kjartan Steen-Olsen & Richard Wood & Gibran Vita & Arnold Tukker & Edgar G. Hertwich, 2016. "Environmental Impact Assessment of Household Consumption," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 20(3), pages 526-536, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pottier, Antonin, 2022. "Expenditure elasticity and income elasticity of GHG emissions: A survey of literature on household carbon footprint," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    2. Golinucci, Nicolò & Tonini, Francesco & Rocco, Matteo Vincenzo & Colombo, Emanuela, 2023. "Towards BitCO2, an individual consumption-based carbon emission reduction mechanism," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    3. Eivind Lekve Bjelle & Johannes Többen & Konstantin Stadler & Thomas Kastner & Michaela C. Theurl & Karl-Heinz Erb & Kjartan-Steen Olsen & Kirsten S. Wiebe & Richard Wood, 2020. "Adding country resolution to EXIOBASE: impacts on land use embodied in trade," Journal of Economic Structures, Springer;Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), vol. 9(1), pages 1-25, December.
    4. Brennan A. McLachlan & G. Cornelis van Kooten, 2022. "Reforming Canada's dairy supply management scheme and the consequences for international trade," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 70(1), pages 21-39, March.
    5. Bauer, Jan M. & Aarestrup, Simon C. & Hansen, Pelle G. & Reisch, Lucia A., 2022. "Nudging more sustainable grocery purchases: Behavioural innovations in a supermarket setting," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    6. Fabio A. Madau & Roberto Furesi & Pietro Pulina, 2017. "Technical efficiency and total factor productivity changes in European dairy farm sectors," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-14, December.
    7. Franco-Solís, Alberto & Montanía, Claudia V., 2021. "Dynamics of deforestation worldwide: A structural decomposition analysis of agricultural land use in South America," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    8. Vita, Gibran & Lundström, Johan R. & Hertwich, Edgar G. & Quist, Jaco & Ivanova, Diana & Stadler, Konstantin & Wood, Richard, 2019. "The Environmental Impact of Green Consumption and Sufficiency Lifestyles Scenarios in Europe: Connecting Local Sustainability Visions to Global Consequences," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 1-1.
    9. Oliver Meixner & Petra Riefler & Karin Schanes, 2021. "Sustainable Consumer Behavior and Food Marketing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-4, November.
    10. Yanping Gong & Jian Li & Julan Xie & Long Zhang & Qiuyin Lou, 2022. "Will “Green” Parents Have “Green” Children? The Relationship Between Parents’ and Early Adolescents’ Green Consumption Values," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 179(2), pages 369-385, August.
    11. Radha Yadav & Dharmendra Kumar & Anil Kumar & Sunil Luthra, 2023. "How does anticipatory trauma reaction and climate‐friendly behaviour make an affect at the individual level? The role of social norms and self‐efficacy," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(7), pages 4028-4045, November.
    12. Jiansheng Qu & Lina Liu & Jingjing Zeng & Tek Narayan Maraseni & Zhiqiang Zhang, 2022. "City-Level Determinants of Household CO 2 Emissions per Person: An Empirical Study Based on a Large Survey in China," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-14, June.
    13. D. Liliana González-Hernández & Raúl A. Aguirre-Gamboa & Erik W. Meijles, 2023. "The role of climate change perceptions and sociodemographics on reported mitigation efforts and performance among households in northeastern Mexico," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 1853-1875, February.
    14. Jichao Geng & Na Yang & Wei Zhang & Li Yang, 2023. "Public Willingness to Pay for Green Lifestyle in China: A Contingent Valuation Method Based on Integrated Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-23, January.
    15. Antonioli, Federico & Santeramo, Fabio Gaetano, 2022. "On Policy Interventions and Vertical Price Transmission: The Italian Milk Supply Chain Case," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 47(2), May.
    16. Uzziah Mutumbi & Gladman Thondhlana & Sheunesu Ruwanza, 2022. "Co-Designed Interventions Yield Significant Electricity Savings among Low-Income Households in Makhanda South Africa," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-17, March.
    17. Vőneki, Éva & Mandi-Nágy, Dániel & Stark, András, 2015. "Prospects for the European Union and Hungarian dairy sectors after the abolition of the milk quota system," Studies in Agricultural Economics, Research Institute for Agricultural Economics, vol. 117(01), pages 1-9, April.
    18. Schwirplies, Claudia & Dütschke, Elisabeth & Schleich, Joachim & Ziegler, Andreas, 2019. "The willingness to offset CO2 emissions from traveling: Findings from discrete choice experiments with different framings," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 1-1.
    19. Chen, Zhenni & Zhang, Zengkai & Feng, Tong & Liu, Diyi, 2023. "What drives the temporal dynamics and spatial differences of urban and rural household emissions in China?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    20. Franco Solís, Alberto & F.T. Avelino, André & Carrascal-Incera, André, 2020. "The evolution of household-induced value chains and their environmental implications," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:227:y:2025:i:c:s0921800924003100. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.