From farm accountancy data to environmental indicators: Assessing the environmental performance of Spanish agriculture at a regional level

Abstract

Understanding the environmental impacts of current agricultural practices is a starting point for transitioning towards sustainable agriculture, which is a goal to be achieved by the European Union. This study aims to provide a set of environmental impact indicators with which to assess and compare the environmental performance of a broad group of agricultural reference holdings at the Spanish NUTS 2 level. A life cycle assessment approach based on statistical data on farm accountancy is applied. The unit of analysis is a reference holding on which a specific crop is grown in a NUTS 2 and follows a specific management system (open-field irrigated, open-field rainfed, or greenhouse). The system boundaries are set at the farm gate, and the impact results are expressed per 1 € of net value added. For most reference holdings, the EF scores per net value added are similar regardless of their EF scores per kg commodity, suggesting a correspondence between the use of resources and the economic results. The environmental footprint is clustered into four groups. The first one accounts for 78 % of the sample and represents the holdings with the lowest impact (between 9.7·10−5 and 2.88·10−3 EF score·NVAfc−1); the second cluster groups seven reference holdings (3 herbaceous and 4 Mediterranean perennial crops) with an environmental footprint of between 3.04·10−3 and 9.01·10−3 EF score·NVAfc−1; the third group comprises four irrigated herbaceous crops holdings with the highest impact (between 1.37·10−2 and 2.13·10−2 EF score·NVAfc−1); and the last group corresponds to the holdings with economic losses (mostly herbaceous and two Mediterranean perennial crops). This research highlights the challenge of improving the competitiveness and profitability of Spanish farming. In this way, agricultural practices that generate environmental impacts without achieving their economic goals would be avoided.