Background:

Recently, there has been an increase in the global demand of beef. As a result, a higher number of cattle farms have been established to meet the commercial demands, thus producing an increment in the number of anthropic actions. Aim: to define a method of analysis related to the environmental implications of fattening systems for grazing cattle, through a new set of environmental indicators (EI).

Methods:

This study helped determine a global fattening indicator under grazing conditions, named Environmental Grazing Indicator (EGI). It was quantified using an environmental risk factor between 0 and 100, with eight partial indexes, each of them corresponding to a particular cattle raising activity. A Likert-type scale was applied, and the weights estimated for each partial index were calculated according to the data provided by different experts.

Results and conclusions:

This new method enables the study and evaluation of environmental impacts on cattle fattening systems under grazing conditions. The results of this study lay solid groundwork for the construction of environmental indexes in other production systems, which might replace fattening cattle activities by more specific ones, depending on the conditions. This method is a valuable tool for impact detection, and the application of mitigation measures in any production area.