20240429 Calibre April 2024 Investor Presentation.pdf
Life cycle assessment of organic versus conventional agriculture. a case study of
1. GRADUATE SCHOOL OF NATURAL AND APPLIED SCIENCES
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGIES
Homework
2020 - 2021
ERCIYES UNIVERSITSY
Prepared By
Layth Hussein ASHOUR
4014140008
SUPERVIER
Dr. Evrim Karacetin
2.
3. Life cycle assessment of organic versus
conventional agriculture. A case study of
lettuce cultivation in Greece.
Spyros Foteinis, Efthalia Chatzisymeon
2015
Journal of Cleaner production
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.09.075
4. Introduction
Lettuce (Lactuca sativa), an important leafy vegetable crop, has been used in
human diet for more than 6500 years.
Its global annual production has been multiplied over the last decade, from
M tons in 1993 to 25 M tons in 2012.
Lettuce is a popular cultivation across Mediterranean countries such as
During the last few years lettuce cultivation has been sharply increased in
Greece, climbing from 90 K tons in 2009 to about 130 K tons in 2012.
5. Introduction
Agriculture requirements
• optimum temperature between 15 to 18.5 °C
• soil pH between 6.5 and 7
cultivated methods
• Greenhouses
• open field
cultivation systems
• Conventional This is based on chemical inputs, such as fertilizers,
herbicides and pesticides
• Organic This is based on crop rotations and residues, organic fertilizers and
biological pest control•
Major Agricultural Changes:
• Irrigation – More
• Chemical Pesticide Use – More
6. The aim of this study
to investigate the sustainability of both conventional and organic lettuce
systems by assessing their environmental impacts.
Highlights
The main hotspots of organic cultivation are irrigation followed by machinery use.
Hotspots in conventional cultivation are irrigation and fertilizers application.
Organic lettuce cultivation is a more sustainable system per area of cultivation.
Conventional cultivation has low environmental impacts per product unit.
Introduction
7. Methods:
Goal And Scope
Goal: to estimate the environmental impacts and identify the hot-spots of the
organic and conventional open field lettuce cultivation.
Scope: An in-depth understanding of the environmental impacts of each
cultivation system.
(a) promote more sustainable cultivation systems, in terms of their total
environmental impacts.
(b) reduce their environmental footprint, by selecting alternative processes or
materials.
8. Three main stages are considered
for both cultivation systems;
these are the:-
(a) irrigation
(b) machinery used
(c) fertilizing needs.
System boundaries
9. Method – LCA
• LCA
• Software: SimaPro 8
• approach was used : Cradle to Gate
• Life Cycle Inventory Analysis (LCIA): mid and endpoint level.
• Functional Unit:(a) hectare of cultivation (b) ton of lettuce produced
10. Table 1. Life cycle inventory (LCI) of the organic and conventional lettuce cultivation per hectare of lettuce
cultivation.
11. Methods – Selected Study Systems , Table 2. midpoint and endpoint impact categories
12. Figure 2. Dendrogram of the main contributions to environmental impacts per hectare of (a) organic and (b)
conventional lettuce cultivation systems.
13.
14. Figure 3. Severity of the endpoint (a) impact categories, and (b) aggregate impact
categories according to the ReCiPe methodology, per hectare of organic lettuce cultivation.
15. the main impact categories that are affected by lettuce organic cultivation are Climate
change Human health, Human toxicity, Particulate matter formation, Climate change
Ecosystems, Metal depletion and Fossil depletion categories.
that irrigation affects all the impact categories and plays the most important role in the
Human toxicity category and highly affects the categories: Fossil depletion, Climate change
Human Health, and Climate change Ecosystems the high contribution of irrigation is mainly
attributed to the high dependence of the Greek electricity grid on fossil fuels and specifically
on lignite .
Primarily irrigation 61%, secondary machinery used 29.2% and lastly to fertilizing practices
9.7% of the total environmental impacts
16. Figure 4. Severity of the endpoint (a) impact categories, and (b) aggregate impact categories
according to the ReCiPe methodology, per hectare of conventional lettuce cultivation.
17. it is that irrigation mostly contributes to the environmental footprint of conventional lettuce
cultivation, and highly affects the Fossil depletion, Climate change Human Health, and
Climate change Ecosystems categories because of the high energy demands for pumping
ground water resources and the fossil dependent Greek electricity mix.
Fertilizing needs the second most important contributor to the total environmental impacts of
conventional cultivation the high amount of chemical inputs, mainly of nitrogen based
fertilizers are responsible for the increased environmental impacts of this stage.
their application in the field results in airborne and waterborne emissions which can be
highly toxic to humans and the environment and can lead to eutrophication.
the machinery used low environmental impacts compared to organic cultivation
18. Figure 5. Aggregated results using ReCiPe’s three endpoint damage categories, namely human health,
ecosystem and resources per hectare of organic or conventional lettuce cultivation.
it is observed that conventional lettuce cultivation yields a higher severity level than organic
cultivation for all impact categories. These high environmental impacts can be primarily attributed to
the use of several chemical fertilizers.
19. Figure 7. Comparison of organic versus conventional lettuce cultivation per unit of area (ha) and per
product unit (ton) using the (a) IPCC 2013 and (b) ReCiPe impact assessment methods.
Both cultivation systems yield higher environmental impacts and emissions per area of cultivation, in
these cases per hectare, than per ton of lettuce produced.
Organic is more environmentally friendly than conventional lettuce cultivation when its sustainability is
assessed per cultivation area unit.
while results are inversed when sustainability is estimated per ton of lettuce produced.
20. Figure 8. The environmental performance, at midpoint level, of organic and conventional lettuce
cultivation per unit of area (ha) and per unit of product (ton), using the ReCiPe impact assessment
method.
using ReCiPe’s 18 midpoint impact categories the main impacts categories, at midpoint level, that are affected
by lettuce cultivation are Freshwater eutrophication (FE), Human toxicity (HT), Freshwater Eco toxicity (FET),
Marine Eco toxicity (MET), while Natural land transformation (NLT) and Fossil depletion (FD) are also affected at a
lower degree. that the Freshwater eutrophication category yielded significantly high environmental impacts for
conventional cultivation for both functional units , This can be attributed to the use of chemical fertilizers ,
presence of increased nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations.
21.
22. Conclusions
Irrigation plays a very important role for both cultivation systems, due
to its high energy demands and the Greek energy mix which strongly
depends on fossil fuels. though the water management for both
systems needs to be improved.
The environmental sustainability of conventional cultivation is strongly
related to its chemical inputs, mainly to nitrogen fertilizers, which can
cause high levels of freshwater eutrophication Thus, conventional
cultivation can negatively affect freshwater receiving bodies, such as
lakes, ponds and rivers.
23. Conclusions
The sustainability of organic cultivation is strongly related to the
transportation of organic fertilizers (manure) to the field and to their
mechanical spreading and application. Also, the fossil fuel
requirements for the mechanical agitation of the soil (i.e. tractor
ploughing, harrowing and hoeing) play an important role.
Organic cultivation was found to be more environmentally friendly
than conventional when results are express per unit area (1 ha), while
when results are express per unit of product (1 ton) then conventional
agriculture has a better environmental performance.
24. MAIN CONCLUSION
Overall, the organic systems showed low environmental
impacts in all categories compared to the conventional ones
due to lower amounts of fertilizers and pesticides applied.
BUT - their productivity was the lowest compared to both
conventional.
Editor's Notes
ابرووج ، كرييدل
that CO2 emissions of organic cultivation are about 15% lower than those of conventional per area of cultivation. irrigation is responsible for 58.7% of the total environmental impacts that this high environmental burden is mainly attributed to the high energy demands electricity which was 56.1%
the machinery use contributes by 29.4%
The third contributor to the environmental impacts of organic cultivation is fertilizing, which is responsible for the 11.9% of CO2 emissions
irrigation during conventional lettuce cultivation contributed by 57.3% followed by fertilizing needs and machinery used by 30.7% and 12% respectively. Machinery contribution to CO2 emissions are lower than that of organic cultivation, since hoeing and manure spreading are not applied. fertilizing emits substantially higher CO2emissions more than those of organic cultivation. This is attributed to the use of several chemicals fertilizers, fungicides, and insecticides in conventional farming
the main impact categories that are affected by lettuce organic cultivation are Climate change Human ealth,Human toxicity, Particulate matter formation, Climate change Ecosystems, Metal depletion and Fossil depletion categories. that irrigation affects all the impact categories and plays the most important role in the Human toxicity category and highly affects the categories: Fossil depletion, Climate change Human Health, and Climate change Ecosystems the high contribution of irrigation is mainly attributed to the high dependence of the Greek electricity grid on fossil fuels and specifically on lignite . Primarily irrigation 61%, secondary machinery used 29.2% and lastly to fertilizing practices 9.7% of the total environmental impacts
it is that irrigation mostly contributes to the environmental footprint of conventional lettuce cultivation, and highly affects the Fossil depletion, Climate change Human Health, and Climate change Ecosystems categories because of the high energy demands for pumping ground water resources and the fossil dependent Greek electricity mix.
Fertilizing needs the second most important contributor to the total environmental impacts of conventional cultivation. The high amount of chemical inputs, mainly of nitrogen based fertilizers are responsible for the increased environmental impacts of this stage. their application in the field results in airborne and waterborne emissions which can be highly toxic to humans and the environment and can lead to eutrophication. the machinery used low environmental impacts compared to organic cultivation
it is observed that conventional lettuce cultivation yields a higher severity level than organic cultivation for all impact categories. These high environmental impacts can be primarily attributed to the use of several chemical fertilizers.
Both cultivation systems yield higher environmental impacts and emissions per area of cultivation, in these cases per hectare, than per ton of lettuce produced.
Organic is more environmentally friendly than conventional lettuce cultivation when its sustainability is assessed per cultivation area unit.
while results are inversed when sustainability is estimated per ton of lettuce produced.
using ReCiPe’s 18 midpoint impact categories the main impacts categories, at midpoint level, that are affected by lettuce cultivation are Freshwater eutrophication (FE), Human toxicity (HT), Freshwater Eco toxicity (FET), Marine Eco toxicity (MET), while Natural land transformation (NLT) and Fossil depletion (FD) are also affected at a lower degree. that the Freshwater eutrophication category yielded significantly high environmental impacts for conventional cultivation for both functional units , This can be attributed to the use of chemical fertilizers , presence of increased nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations.
The main hotspot that was identified in this work for both cultivation systems is electricity consumption from the local grid, in this case the Greek energy mix. the substitution of the fossil fuel dependent energy mix with solar energy, an environmentally friendly renewable source, was It is observed that solar energy can reduce the environmental footprint of organic and conventional lettuce cultivation
