Life Cycle Assessment to Highlight the Environmental Burdens of Early Potato Production

Abstract

Climate change, food security, and the protection of the planet’s resources require the adoption of sustainable production models. Achieving sustainable development in the agri-food sector enables the creation of new opportunities for operators, guiding farmers towards more environmentally friendly practices and offering cost-effective results. Organic farming paradigms are promoted by the transformation of some harmful practices of conventional agriculture, such as the wide use of chemical products of synthesis, the deep workings that favor the erosive processes, the excessive use of nitrogenous fertilizers. There are still gaps in the knowledge of the real performance of some products that strongly support the local economic system of Sicily (Italy). The research aims to highlight the differences in environmental impact caused by the cultivation of organic early potatoes compared to the conventional regime and the same per kg of product obtained. To this end, the widely used methodology for comparing the environmental impacts of agricultural production systems is the Life Cycle Assessment, which allows us to highlight the phases in which environmental criticalities are most concentrated. An interesting agroecological picture of knowledge emerges, since organic farming is by definition an ecological model that supports the principles of the Green Deal, it often requires interventions to improve the yields obtained in order to achieve a positive result both in terms of cultivated surface and kg of product obtained.