Tag Archives: life cycle assessment (LCA)

60–76 G. Falcone, T. Stillitano, F. Montemurro, A.I. De Luca, G. Gulisano and A. Strano
Environmental and economic assessment of sustainability in Mediterranean wheat production
Abstract |

Environmental and economic assessment of sustainability in Mediterranean wheat production

G. Falcone¹, T. Stillitano¹, F. Montemurro², A.I. De Luca¹*, G. Gulisano¹ and A. Strano¹

¹Department of Agriculture, Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, Feo di Vito, IT89100 Reggio Calabria, Italy
²Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l’analisi dell’economia agraria - Research Centre for Agriculture and Environment, Bari, Italy
*Correspondence: anna.deluca@unirc.it

Abstract:

This study proposes the application of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and economic evaluations conducted on different cereal production systems in semi-arid environments. Two different crop management systems of durum wheat were analysed by distinguishing Continuous Cropping (CC) and Crop Rotation (CR) with vetch, that are conducted through two different levels of crop intensification (in terms of tillage and fertilization strategies): Conventional (Conv) and Conservative (Cons). The resulting four scenarios were examined using LCA methodology to assess the environmental impacts, and the Production Cost (PC) analysis to estimate the economic results. Overall, the findings of this research provide an opportunity to identify sustainable crops management strategies.

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257-262 S. Hokazono, K. Hayashi and M. Sato
Potentialities of organic and sustainable rice production in Japan from a life cycle perspective
Abstract |
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Potentialities of organic and sustainable rice production in Japan from a life cycle perspective

S. Hokazono, K. Hayashi and M. Sato

National Agricultural Research Center, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization,3-1-1 Kannondai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8666, Japan; e-mail: hokazo@affrc.go.jp

Abstract:

Many cultivation practices have been improved in order to decrease environmental burdens of paddy rice production in Japan. Therefore, the importance of life cycle assessment (LCA) to assess the environmental impacts of whole production systems particularly that of rice production has increased. However, the applications of LCA to rice production are still limited, although rice is the staple food in Asian countries. In this study, we apply LCA to organic and sustainable (environmentally-friendly) rice production and compare the two systems by using global warming and eutrophication potentials as indicators. Although both of these production systems generally outperform conventional farming, our results indicate that the environmental superiority of organic and sustainable farming depends on the functional unit. Our results imply that organic and sustainable farming have the potential to reduce environmental burdens depending on the functions of farming systems used for the analysis.

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