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Carbon footprints of crops from organic and conventional arable crop rotations – using a life cycle assessment approach

Knudsen, Marie Trydeman; Meyer-Aurich, Andreas; Olesen, Jørgen E.; Chirinda, N. and Hermansen, J.E. (2014) Carbon footprints of crops from organic and conventional arable crop rotations – using a life cycle assessment approach. Journal of Cleaner Production, 64 (2014), pp. 609-618.

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Document available online at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652613004708


Summary

Many current organic arable agriculture systems are challenged by a dependency on imported livestock manure from conventional agriculture. At the same time organic agriculture aims at being climate friendly. A life cycle assessment is used in this paper to compare the carbon footprints of different organic arable crop rotations with different sources of N supply. Data from long-term field experiments at three different locations in Denmark were used to analyse three different organic cropping systems (‘Slurry’, ‘Biogas’ and ‘Mulching’), one conventional cropping system (‘Conventional’) and a “No input” system as reference systems. The ‘Slurry’ and ‘Conventional’ rotations received slurry and mineral fertilizer, respectively, whereas the ‘No input’ was unfertilized. The ‘Mulching’ and ‘Biogas’ rotations had one year of grass-clover instead of a faba bean crop. The grass-clover biomass was incorporated in the soil in the ‘Mulching’ rotation and removed and used for biogas production in the ‘Biogas’ rotation (and residues from biogas production were simulated to be returned to the field).
A method was suggested for allocating effects of fertility building crops in life cycle assessments. The results showed significantly lower carbon footprint of the crops from the ‘Biogas’ rotation (assuming that biogas replaces fossil gas) whereas the remaining crop rotations had comparable carbon footprints per kg cash crop. The study showed considerable contributions caused by the green manure crop (grass-clover) and highlights the importance of analysing the whole crop rotation and including soil carbon changes when estimating carbon footprints of organic crops especially where green manure crops are included.


EPrint Type:Journal paper
Keywords:Organic, crop rotations, biogas, conventional, LCA, greenhouse gas emissions
Agrovoc keywords:
Language
Value
URI
English
Organic agriculture
http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_15911
English
Crop rotation
http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_6662
English
Biogas
http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_9262
English
life cycle analysis
http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_9000105
English
conventional farming
http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_331393
English
Greenhouse gases
http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_34841
Subjects: Crop husbandry > Production systems
Crop husbandry > Crop combinations and interactions
Crop husbandry
Environmental aspects > Air and water emissions
Environmental aspects
Research affiliation: Denmark > DARCOF III (2005-2010) > CROPSYS - The effect of cropping systems on production and the environment
Denmark > AU - Aarhus University > AU, DJF - Faculty of Agricultural Sciences
Denmark > CROPSYS
DOI:10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.07.009
Deposited By: Knudsen, Researcher Marie Trydeman
ID Code:23069
Deposited On:09 Aug 2013 08:55
Last Modified:06 Jun 2022 15:58
Document Language:English
Status:Published
Refereed:Peer-reviewed and accepted

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