EU Concerted Action report HARMONISATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT FOR AGRICULTURE Final Report. Concerted Action AIR3-CT94-2028
Abstract
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) evaluates the environmental burdens associated with a product, process, or activity including the entire life-cycle from extracting and processing raw materials to final disposal. LCA was primarily developed in applications to industrial production systems. Several groups in Europe were beginning to apply LCA to agricultural systems. This Concerted Action was set up to investigate how LCA may be applied to agricultural production, to identify methodological difficulties which require further research and to harmonise the approaches of the groups listed in Appendix 1. Three alternative methods of growing wheat were used as case studies and defined in a way that introduced as many as possible of the issues requiring harmonisation and resolution. Initial calculations by the groups showed there were indeed considerable differences needing harmonisation. For each LCA point there is a general conclusion for agriculture and a conclusion for this study.
Supplementary resource (1)
... Interest, rent. farm buildings, and work animals have not been considered in this study as the lifespan of such commodities is too long to have a signi cant impact on single crop production as stated in earlier studies 42,57 . ...
... From the economic point of view, it is visible that in order to match the BCR ratio of 2.96 for conventional production at 5 rupees per kg, the cost of organic tomatoes needs to be xed at 6.5 INR per kg which is 30 percent higher. When focusing on the marketing scenario, the trend of buyers does not seem highly favorable to spend more than 25 to 50 percent excess to the conventional one 42,58,59 . To capitalize on the market potential for organic tomatoes, it is recommended to nd a pricing strategy that balances the higher cost of organic production with consumer affordability. ...
To meet the growing demand for vegetable production and promote sustainable agriculture, it is imperative to implement effective input management and adopt eco-friendly farming practices. This study aims to compare the environmental impacts of conventional and organic tomato cultivation in the northern plains of India. This study utilizes SimaPro 9.1.1 software for a comprehensive cradle-to-farm gate Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), assessing production stages, identifying key environmental factors, and incorporating ReCiPe Midpoint and Endpoint methods with one-hectare as a functional unit. Findings reveal that conventional cultivation is more affected by fertilization and transplanting, while organic cultivation emphasizes transplanting and irrigation. Organic cultivation contributes 904.708 kg CO 2 , while conventional cultivation contributes 1307.917 kg CO 2 to Global Warming potential. Switching to organic cultivation leads to a significant 35.04% decrease in all impact categories. Using the endpoint method, organic cultivation achieves a notable 27.16% reduction, scoring 58.30 compared to conventional cultivation's 80.04. The LCA analysis of tomato cultivation highlights fertilization as the predominant environmental concern, emphasizing the need for sustainable techniques to minimize waste and mitigate environmental impacts. This study recommends imposing restrictions on fertilizer and pesticide use, and formulating effective policies to promote the adoption of sustainable practices.
... LCAs are regulated under ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 including the four stages (1) goal and scope definition, (2) life cycle inventory (LCI), (3) life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) and (4) interpretation (ISO, 2006a,b). The approach is well suited for studying food systems, even though they differ from classical industrial production systems when it comes to the definition of the functional unit, the system boundaries, and the environmental impact categories (Cucurachi et al., 2019;Audsley, 1997). ...
Given the multiple challenges agriculture faces today, approaches that ensure both food security and the sustainable use of agroecosystems are urgently needed. The concept of community supported agriculture (CSA) is a promising attempt to address all three sustainability dimensions, but empirical research is still limited. Energy efficiency of farming systems is one important aspect when describing their ecological sustainability. This case study compares three CSA farms with three conventional farms, all focusing on vegetable production. Life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology was used to incorporate all relevant energy flows related to vegetable production, including all upstream activities from cradle to farmgate. CSA-farms showed energy return of investment (EROI) factors of 0.13–0.44, while EROI of conventional farms was between 0.02 and 0.69. Energy inputs, particularly fuels, electricity and fertilizer were major determinants, and related to size and structure of farms, while high yield could partially compensate for high energy inputs. CSA farms thereby tended to show relatively low consumption of fossil energy sources, partly due to on-farm electricity production by photovoltaic. Therefore, the performance of CSA regarding EROI of non-renewable energy sources (NRE) was relatively higher (0.17–0.76 compared to 0.05–0.78 for conventional farms). To further improve the energy efficiency, CSA farms need to improve their balance of inputs and outputs (e. g. reduced consumption of fossil fuels without compromising yields). However, CSA reached high energy efficiency if lifecycle costs of distribution were included (EROI = 0.6–3.1), which is likely to be lower in conventional farms with long supply chains and heavy processing. Moreover, CSA also provides additional ecological (e.g., fostering biodiversity, reduction of food loss and waste), social (e.g., education, transparency) and economic benefits (e.g., guaranteed sales). These benefits, as well as a more comprehensive assessment of energy efficiency of different production systems including more farms, need to be considered to better understand the potential contribution of CSA to a transformation toward sustainable food systems.
... In accordance with the studies conducted by Margni et al. 29 and Audsley 30 , it is assumed that leaching of the active substance from the soil into water is at most 10% of the applied dose. The 10% fraction of active substance is emitted into the air and the remaining fraction enters the soil ...
The topic of sustainable water management has become of paramount importance at a global level, especially when considering the high-amount of water used in agriculture, which is a threat to water resource balance. Focused on 38 inventories of nonirrigated vineyard management in the Franciacorta wine-growing region in Italy, this study aims to understand how agronomic practices impact water resources. The integrated statistical approach, based on generalized linear models, reveals how context variables influence different water footprint indicators, such as water scarcity, acidification and freshwater ecotoxicity. Plant density and the presence of hillside vineyards are the primary influencing factors, while others, such as variety susceptibility, vineyard age and soil type may influence the shortage of water. The outcomes help to better understand the impact of management, thereby raising awareness in the wine sector about aspects often overlooked in traditional investigations. These findings offer specific insights for viticulturists, emphasizing the importance of a tailored management approach to minimize water footprint in viticultural practices and contribute to environmental sustainability.
... One of the greatest challenges of the coming decades is meeting the global nutritional demand while safeguarding the environment and reducing pressure on food resources [4]. In this context, accounting tools such life cycle assessment (LCA) play a fundamental role [5]- [7]. It provides a robust framework for understanding the environmental implications of agri-food products, identifying key areas of environmental concern and potential trade-offs, and supporting the development of strategies to mitigate negative impacts and improve overall performance [6]- [10]. ...
... For emissions from pesticide application, Frontiers in Environmental Science frontiersin.org the system used sources from the work of Audsley (1997), which produced averages of around 14.7, 18.4, 20.9, and 28.1 kg CO 2 equivalent per hectare for fungicide, growth regulator, herbicide, and insecticide, respectively. We excluded fuel use by machinery because the typical farming system in the study area does not use machinery. ...
Cacao (Theobroma cacao) is a commodity that plays an important role in supporting economic and social development. However, cacao production can also be a major contributor to carbon emissions, which has stimulated various efforts toward sustainable cacao farm management. There remains a gap in knowledge regarding the links between carbon stocks and carbon footprints, which can serve as indicators of environment “friendliness.” In this study, we investigated carbon stocks and carbon footprints in two cacao cultivation systems, agroforests and monocultural systems, and the biophysical aspects (biotic and abiotic factors) that might contribute to the variability of carbon levels. System inventories, soil samples, and farmer interviews identified the characteristics and management practices of two cacao production systems. Results show that cacao agroforests accumulated more carbon stocks than cacao monocultures, 134.4 Mg C ha⁻¹ and 104.7 Mg C ha⁻¹, respectively, while cacao monocultural systems had higher carbon footprints than cacao agroforests, 1914.4 kg CO2e ha⁻¹ and 932.1 ± 251.6 kg CO2e ha⁻¹, respectively. Canopy cover, tree density, and soil organic carbon were the biophysical aspects that showed a significantly positive correlation with carbon stock levels, while canopy cover had a significantly negative correlation with carbon footprint levels. These results suggest that cacao agroforests are more climate-friendly management systems due to their ability to maintain high carbon stock levels while producing low carbon footprints.
Since the context on environmental issues is challenging, the Cognac protected denomination of origin (PDO) adopted life cycle assessment (LCA) to inform its environmental strategy, initially focusing on vineyard soil management. This study developed a participatory eco-design approach involving stakeholders to inform the PDOs’ strategy for transitioning to less impactful crop management practices. It did this by drawing on literature that emphasises the use of participatory design, serious games, and LCA to foster knowledge sharing, engagement, and sustainability assessment. The approach that was put to the test in the Cognac PDO involved 17 elected officials with varying levels of experience. The participants used the serious game known as Vitigame (a game done for participatory ecodesign in viticulture) to ecodesign a soil management and fertilisation pathway for 2030, with the process guided by the results of the LCA. Exchange dynamics, LCA results, and participant feedback were analysed. The study revealed diverse dynamics and efficient ecodesign strategies among the participant groups, which resulted in a reduction of environmental impacts by up to 51% and raised new questions for the territory. The diversity of participants presented challenges, highlighting the need to improve LCA knowledge sharing. The workshop’s results could inform the PDO’s strategic planning. The interest of this innovative process including a serious game was confirmed, suggesting potential applications to other viticultural PDOs and adaptability to diverse sectors.
To meet the growing demand for vegetable production and promote sustainable agriculture, it is imperative to implement effective input management and adopt eco-friendly farming practices. This study aims to compare the environmental impacts of conventional and organic tomato cultivation in the northern plains of India. This study utilizes SimaPro 9.1.1 software for a comprehensive cradle-to-farm gate Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), assessing production stages, identifying key environmental factors, and incorporating ReCiPe Midpoint and Endpoint methods with one-hectare as a functional unit. Findings reveal that conventional cultivation is more affected by fertilizer application and transplanting, while organic cultivation emphasizes transplanting and irrigation. Organic cultivation contributes 904.708 kg CO2, while conventional cultivation contributes 1307.917 kg CO2 to Global Warming potential. Switching to organic cultivation leads to a significant 35.04% decrease in all impact categories. Using the endpoint method, organic cultivation achieves a notable 27.16% reduction, scoring 58.30 compared to conventional cultivation's 80.04. The LCA analysis of tomato cultivation highlights Fertilizer application as the predominant environmental concern, emphasizing the need for sustainable techniques to minimize waste and mitigate environmental impacts. This study recommends imposing restrictions on fertilizer and pesticide use and formulating effective policies to promote the adoption of sustainable practices.
The mastery of the development cycle of a project, especially in software development, has become a need and an unavoidable necessity to produce a deliverable with value. Thus, to satisfy the requirements of users who have become more volatile. In this regard, the Agile manifesto, or Manifesto for Agile software development, has been proposed to bring increased flexibility and pragmatism to the delivered products by giving values and fundamental principles to revolutionize software development processes incrementally, but without handling the technical framework of their productions.So, our defiance in this paper is to add a technical framework to agile software development processes by proposing a user stories’ meta-model driven method in the Model Driven Architecture (MDA) approach. This approach will lead us to put the models and their meta-models at the center of the development process of any software system to facilitate the development process based on the construction and the transformation of models tasks in the Agile context.KeywordsUser StoryMeta-modelModel Driven Architecture (MDA)Agile
COVID-19 is a disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. The entry of a virus into human cells is a critical phase in its infection. The binding of the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 to Angiotensin converting enzyme 2 ACE2, an enzyme found on the surface of human cells, initiates the infection. Online software tools that overlay the three-dimensional structures of viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, address the problem of structure superposition by overlaying the ACE2 and spike complexes of the first protein on those of the second protein.In this work, overlaying the three-dimensional structures of viruses was addressed by superimposing ACE2 and then applying the resulting transformation from this superposition to the spike. Finally, the root mean square deviation RMSD was calculated. We used the discrete to continuous DTC algorithm to align the 3D structures; the results from the DTC were compared to the results from TopMatch and SuperPose, which are online tools for aligning 3D structures. The obtained results prove that aligning each structure then combining them is the most suitable approach for properly studying the structural evolution of SARS-CoV-2.KeywordsStructure alignment algorithmDiscrete To ContinuousTopMatchSuperPoseCoronavirusesSARSCov2
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