Biodiversitätsbewertung in landwirtschaftlichen Ökobilanzen: Eine Herausforderung

Summary

Within the last years the demand and use of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for calculating and comparing the ecological impacts of agricultural products has increased. In addition there is growing awareness that biodiversity impacts should be included in comprehensive LCAs. This has led to research efforts with the goal to develop and implement methods for biodiversity impact assessment. Especially for organic agriculture such a development is important because thus the often in literature described biodiversity differences between conventional and organic farming could be pictured. In a review, twenty-two different biodiversity impact assessment methods have been analyzed. Their suitability for the evaluation of agricultural
products was questioned. Different criteria, have been selected to investigate the identified methods. It was found that so far none of the existing methods can be applied globally while at the same time being able to differentiate between various agricultural intensities. Global value chains of agricultural production systems demand the development of evaluation methods that are able to overcome these shortcomings.