Author, as appears in the article.: Montemayor, Erica; Pereira Andrade, Edilene; Bonmati, August; Anton, Assumpcio;
Department: Enginyeria Química
URV's Author/s: ANTON VALLEJO, MARIA ASUNCIÓN / Pereira Andrade, Edilene
Project code: Grant agreement No. 713679
Keywords: Uncertainties Plant protection products Organic fertilizer Organic agriculture Life cycle inventory Life cycle assessment Land-use impacts Greenhouse-gas emissions Environmental impacts Economic-analysis Ecoinvent Agribalyse
Abstract: Purpose Organic agriculture (OA) has gained widespread popularity due to its view as a more sustainable method of farming. Yet OA and conventional agriculture (CA) can be found to have similar or varying environmental performance using tools such as life cycle assessment (LCA). However, the current state of LCA does not accurately reflect the effects of OA; thus the aim of the present study was to identify gaps in the inventory stage and suggest improvements. Methods This article presents for the first time a critical analysis of the life cycle inventory (LCI) of state-of-the-art organic crop LCIs from current and recommended LCA databases ecoinvent and AGRIBALYSE (R). The effects of these limitations on LCA results were analyzed and detailed ways to improve upon them were proposed. Results and discussion Through this analysis, unrepresentative plant protection product (PPP) manufacturing and organic fertilizer treatment inventories were found to be the main limitations in background processes, due to either the lack of available usage statistics, exclusion from the study, or use of unrepresentative proxies. Many organic crop LCIs used synthetic pesticide or mineral fertilizer proxies, which may indirectly contain OA prohibited chemicals. The effect of using these proxies can contribute between 4-78% to resource and energy-related impact categories. In a foreground analysis, the fertilizer and PPP emission models utilized by ecoinvent and AGRIBALYSE (R) were not well adapted to organic-authorized inputs and used simplified modeling assumptions. These critical aspects can be transferred to respective LCAs that use this data, potentially yielding unrepresentative results for relevant categories. To improve accuracy and to contribute novel data to the scientific community, new manufacturing LCIs were created for a few of the missing PPPs, as well as recommendations for fertilizer treatment LCIs and more precise emission models for PPPs and fertilizers. Conclusions The findings in the present article add much needed transparency regarding the limitations of available OA LCIs, offers guidance on how to make OA LCIs more representative, allow for more accurate comparisons between conventional and OA, and help practitioners to better adapt LCA methodology to OA systems.
Thematic Areas: Materiais Interdisciplinar General environmental science Farmacia Environmental sciences Environmental science (miscellaneous) Environmental science (all) Ensino Engineering, environmental Engenharias iii Engenharias ii Engenharias i Economia Ciências ambientais Ciências agrárias i Ciência de alimentos Biotecnología Administração pública e de empresas, ciências contábeis e turismo
licence for use: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/
Author's mail: edilene.pereira@estudiants.urv.cat
Record's date: 2022-08-07
Papper version: info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Funding program: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions - European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme
Papper original source: International Journal Of Life Cycle Assessment. 27 (4): 543-563
APA: Montemayor, Erica; Pereira Andrade, Edilene; Bonmati, August; Anton, Assumpcio; (2022). Critical analysis of life cycle inventory datasets for organic crop production systems. International Journal Of Life Cycle Assessment, 27(4), 543-563. DOI: 10.1007/s11367-022-02044-x
Licence document URL: https://repositori.urv.cat/ca/proteccio-de-dades/
Acronym: MFP
Entity: Universitat Rovira i Virgili
Journal publication year: 2022
Funding program action: Martí i Franquès COFUND Doctoral Programme
Publication Type: Journal Publications
Repositori URV