AN LCA MODELTO ASSESS THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENT OF NEW FARMING SYSTEMS

The environmental impact of new farming practices is compared with that of conventional one. The approach is that of LCA and the assessing procedure is based on two cross-interaction matrices relating system inputs with emissions and impacts. With the aim to allow its application also at farm level...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of agricultural engineering (Pisa, Italy) Italy), 2009-12, Vol.40 (4), p.19
Main Authors: Spugnoli, Paolo, Baldi, Fabio, Parenti, Alessandro
Format: Article
Language:eng ; ita
Subjects:
Agricultural practices
Carbon dioxide
Cultivation
Ecological effects
Environmental effects
Environmental impact
Farming
Farming systems
Sunflowers
Systems analysis
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The environmental impact of new farming practices is compared with that of conventional one. The approach is that of LCA and the assessing procedure is based on two cross-interaction matrices relating system inputs with emissions and impacts. With the aim to allow its application also at farm level by non-expert users, the procedure has been implemented in software that facilitate it use. Furthermore, the definition of standard impact values and a total environmental effects index make it easier to compare different systems and to evaluate the improvement achieved with a new agricultural practice. As an example, the model has been applied to compare the environmental effects generated in the production of sunflower using ecological, integrated and conventional farming techniques. Both Ecological and Integrated technique present lower impact than conventional even if for some specific impact the results are inverted. The application highlights the importance of the functional unit: when environmental effects are referred to the unit of production (ton), the total impact of the integrated technique is higher than the conventional one. Energy and CO2 efficiency are also computed, which are resulted to be good indicators of the overall environmental impact of a cultivation system
ISSN:1974-7071
2239-6268
DOI:10.4081/jae.2009.86