Life Cycle assessment to evaluate the environmental impact of arable crop production

Abstract

Agriculture is expected to comply with sustainability principles, i.e. to be economically competitive, to produce high quality food in sufficient quantities at affordable prices, and to be environmentally benign. In order to evaluate the sus9 tainability of agricultural production, it is necessary to have appropriate economic, social and environmental indicators in place. The main objective of this study is to develop indicators for the environmental impact of arable crop production. In a comprehensive environmental analysis of arable products and production systems, for example, it is important to find the most environmentally friendly production alternatives and to detect the environmental hotspots in the production systems. In order to evaluate the entire environmental burden associated with arable production, it is necessary to consider all important environmental impacts like nitrate leaching, ammonia volatilization or energy consumption. Furthermore, it is important to consider the impacts directly connected to the agricultural activities in the field together with those impacts, which are connected to the pro9 duction and transportation of farm inputs like mineral fertilizers, seeds or machines.