Evaluation of Environmental Impacts of Organic Farming by LCA method - Greenhouse Gases from Corn Production

Summary

Organic farming is perceived as a system with a number of positive impacts on all components of the environment. For more precise assessment of differences in environmental impacts of conventional and organic farming, we need to be able to measure and quantify such impacts. For this the LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) method may be used as a tool. Among other, the LCA method is also an invaluable tool for assessing GHG emissions related to agricultural production. In this paper, the use of LCA for evaluation of GHG emissions from Zea Mays L. growing is presented. The emission load was calculated by the simplified method LCA, impact category: climate change. The calculation was performed by SIMA Pro software with integrated ReCiPe Midpoint (H) method. The functional unit of the system was represented by 1 kg of corn grain. The model life cycle includes the farm phase (field emissions, seed and planting, fertilizers, plant protection products, agrotechnical operations), calculation of field emissions is also included. The results based e.g. on the yields in Cameroon show clear differences between conventional and organic growing of corn. The GHG emissions expressed in CO2e are after calculation on production unit 38.57 % lower in organic farming, compared to conventional farming.