Speaker
Description
Wheat production is one of the most important agricultural systems, with an estimated global area of about 219 million hectares[1]. It has been shown that agricultural systems and the cereal industry as part of this, may potentially threaten biodiversity and ecosystem functions[2]. This highlights the necessity to optimise the production of wheat grain in an environmentally sustainable way[3]. The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the environmental impacts of conventional and organic wheat grain production systems in Sicily using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method. The analysis was conducted using data from 21 farms (14 conventional and 7 organic) based in Sicily in 2021 and 2022. A "cradle to gate" system boundary was specified. All wheat cultivation activities were considered. In this study, yield (t ha-1) was used as the functional unit (FU). In the life cycle inventory stage, primary data was collected through questionnaires. Secondary data from Ecoinvent v.3.0 was used in instances where the necessary primary information was unavailable. The analysis was carried out using SimaPro 9.5.0.1. The CML-IA baseline impact assessment method was used, considering 11 categories.The results showed that for almost all impact categories, conventional farming had higher environmental impacts than organic farming. Normalized results suggested that, for both systems, marine aquatic ecotoxicity was the most affected impact category, with calculated values ranging from 1,30E+05 to 1,05E+06 kg 1,4-DB eq.
For the conventional system, most of the impact categories were mainly influenced by transport of all products and by pesticide production, especially for ozone layer depletion and abiotic depletion. The only exception was terrestrial ecotoxicity, which was mainly affected by seed production. Only eutrophication was primarily affected by the cultivation step. The production of packaging, lubricating oil and waste treatments had no significant impact. In organic system, in almost all categories, the most significant impacts were related to the production and use of diesel. Furthermore, there were no differences between self-produced seeds vs. seeds that were sourced from local producers. The findings of this study are useful in assessing solutions to reduce the environmental impacts related to wheat production.
Funding: This abstract is part of the project NODES which has received funding from the MUR - M4C2 1.5 of PNRR funded by the European Union - NextGenerationEU (Grant agreement no. ECS00000036).
References:
[1] Food And Agriculture Organization Of The United Nations FAOSTAT database; https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data (last accessed 23 May 2024)
[2] Zingale, S., Guarnaccia, P., Matarazzo, A., Lagioia, G., & Ingrao, C. (2022). A systematic literature review of life cycle assessments in the durum wheat sector. Science of The Total Environment, 844, 157230.
[3] Di Cristofaro, M., Marino, S., Lima, G., & Mastronardi, L. (2024). Evaluating the impacts of different wheat farming systems through Life Cycle Assessment. Journal of Cleaner Production, 436, 140696.
