Life cycle assessment of contemporary Canadian egg production systems during the transition from conventional cage to alternative housing systems: Update and analysis of trends and conditions

Climate change, food security, and the protection of the planet’s resources require the adoption of sustainable production models. Achieving sustainable development in the agri-food sector enables the creation of new opportunities for operators, guiding farmers towards more environmentally friendly practices and offering cost-effective results. Organic farming paradigms are promoted by the transformation of some harmful practices of conventional agriculture, such as the wide use of chemical products of synthesis, the deep workings that favor the erosive processes, the excessive use of nitrogenous fertilizers. There are still gaps in the knowledge of the real performance of some products that strongly support the local economic system of Sicily (Italy). The research aims to highlight the differences in environmental impact caused by the cultivation of organic early potatoes compared to the conventional regime and the same per kg of product obtained. To this end, the widely used methodology for comparing the environmental impacts of agricultural production systems is the Life Cycle Assessment, which allows us to highlight the phases in which environmental criticalities are most concentrated. An interesting agroecological picture of knowledge emerges, since organic farming is by definition an ecological model that supports the principles of the Green Deal, it often requires interventions to improve the yields obtained in order to achieve a positive result both in terms of cultivated surface and kg of product obtained.

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Framework for life cycle assessment of livestock production systems to account for the nutritional quality of final products

Food and Energy Security ◽

10.1002/fes3.143 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 7 (3) ◽

pp. e00143 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Graham A. McAuliffe ◽

Taro Takahashi ◽

Michael R. F. Lee

Keyword(s):

Life Cycle Assessment ◽

Life Cycle ◽

Nutritional Quality ◽

Production Systems ◽

Livestock Production

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A partial life cycle assessment approach to evaluate the energy intensity and related greenhouse gas emission in dairy farms

Journal of Agricultural Engineering ◽

10.4081/jae.2013.279 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 44 (2s) ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Lelia Murgia ◽

Giuseppe Todde ◽

Maria Caria ◽

Antonio Pazzona

Keyword(s):

Life Cycle Assessment ◽

Life Cycle ◽

Energy Consumption ◽

Milk Production ◽

Environmental Sustainability ◽

Greenhouse Gas Emission ◽

Production Systems ◽

Dairy Farms ◽

Dairy Farming ◽

Feeding Management

Dairy farming is constantly evolving towards more intensive levels of mechanization and automation which demand more energy consumption and result in higher economic and environmental costs. The usage of fossil energy in agricultural processes contributes to climate change both with on-farm emissions from the combustion of fuels, and by off-farm emissions due to the use of grid power. As a consequence, a more efficient use of fossil resources together with an increased use of renewable energies can play a key role for the development of more sustainable production systems. The aims of this study were to evaluate the energy requirements (fuels and electricity) in dairy farms, define the distribution of the energy demands among the different farm operations, identify the critical point of the process and estimate the amount of CO2 associated with the energy consumption. The inventory of the energy uses has been outlined by a partial Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach, setting the system boundaries at the farm level, from cradle to farm gate. All the flows of materials and energy associated to milk production process, including crops cultivation for fodder production, were investigated in 20 dairy commercial farms over a period of one year. Self-produced energy from renewable sources was also accounted as it influence the overall balance of emissions. Data analysis was focused on the calculation of energy and environmental sustainability indicators (EUI, CO2-eq) referred to the functional units. The production of 1 kg of Fat and Protein Corrected Milk (FPCM) required on average 0.044 kWhel and 0.251 kWhth, corresponding to a total emission of 0.085 kg CO2-eq). The farm activities that contribute most to the electricity requirements were milk cooling, milking and slurry management, while feeding management and crop cultivation were the greatest diesel fuel consuming operation and the largest in terms of environmental impact of milk production (73% of energy CO2-eq emissions). The results of the study can assist in the development of dairy farming models based on a more efficient and profitable use of the energy resources.

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Life cycle assessment (LCA) of intensive poultry production systems

Achieving sustainable production of poultry meat: Volume 1: Safety, quality and sustainability - Burleigh Dodds Series in Agricultural Science ◽

10.19103/as.2016.0010.20 ◽

2016 ◽

pp. 339-355 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ilkka Leinonen ◽

Keyword(s):

Life Cycle Assessment ◽

Life Cycle ◽

Production Systems ◽

Poultry Production

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Assessing the eco-efficiency of different poultry production systems: an approach using life cycle assessment and economic value added

Sustainable Production and Consumption ◽

10.1016/j.spc.2020.07.007 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 24 ◽

pp. 181-193 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Gabrielli Martinelli ◽

Everton Vogel ◽

Michel Decian ◽

Maycon Jorge Ulisses Saraiva Farinha ◽

Luciana Virginia Mario Bernardo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Life Cycle Assessment ◽

Life Cycle ◽

Production Systems ◽

Economic Value ◽

Value Added ◽

Poultry Production ◽

Economic Value Added

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Life Cycle Assessment and Environmental Valuation of Biochar Production: Two Case Studies in Belgium

Energies ◽

10.3390/en12112166 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 12 (11) ◽

pp. 2166 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Sara Rajabi Hamedani ◽

Tom Kuppens ◽

Robert Malina ◽

Enrico Bocci ◽

Andrea Colantoni ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Life Cycle Assessment ◽

Life Cycle ◽

Environmental Impacts ◽

Production Systems ◽

Point Of View ◽

Environmental Benefits ◽

Pig Manure ◽

Future Research ◽

Life Cycle Perspective ◽

The Impact

It is unclear whether the production of biochar is economically feasible. As a consequence, firms do not often invest in biochar production plants. However, biochar production and application might be desirable from a societal perspective as it might entail net environmental benefits. Hence, the aim of this work has been to assess and monetize the environmental impacts of biochar production systems so that the environmental aspects can be integrated with the economic and social ones later on to quantify the total return for society. Therefore, a life cycle analysis (LCA) has been performed for two potential biochar production systems in Belgium based on two different feedstocks: (i) willow and (ii) pig manure. First, the environmental impacts of the two biochar production systems are assessed from a life cycle perspective, assuming one ton of biochar as the functional unit. Therefore, LCA using SimaPro software has been performed both on the midpoint and endpoint level. Biochar production from willow achieves better results compared to biochar from pig manure for all environmental impact categories considered. In a second step, monetary valuation has been applied to the LCA results in order to weigh environmental benefits against environmental costs using the Ecotax, Ecovalue, and Stepwise approach. Consequently, sensitivity analysis investigates the impact of variation in NPK savings and byproducts of the biochar production process on monetized life cycle assessment results. As a result, it is suggested that biochar production from willow is preferred to biochar production from pig manure from an environmental point of view. In future research, those monetized environmental impacts will be integrated within existing techno-economic models that calculate the financial viability from an investor’s point of view, so that the total return for society can be quantified and the preferred biochar production system from a societal point of view can be identified.

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