D 4.3. Report on the life cycle assessment (LCA) of selected intercropping systems

Summary

All agricultural production, including organic, affects the environment. Therefore, within the SCOOP project we tried to answer, through multi-criterial analysis, to the question: how intercropping systems with camelina influence the sustainability in terms of energy, environmental and economic categories. The scope of the research included analysis of energy efficiency, life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle cost (LCC) assessment, including external environmental cost. In the SCOOP project, focused on innovative and diversified organic intercropping systems, we aimed to test new intercropping systems based on camelina combined with locally selected underutilized crops (e.g., pulses, pseudocereals, ancient cereals, etc.) in Poland, Bulgaria and Türkiye.
The environmental impact of camelina cultivation, companion crops, and intercropping systems varied considerably depending on the plant species, but above all on the applied production inputs and the resulting yields. In general, cropping systems in Poland involved more intensive management and higher input levels, which translated into high environmental impact and damage, especially when expressed per 1 hectare. When the results were recalculated per 1 tonne or 1 GJ of harvested seeds, the differences in environmental impact between cropping systems and countries shifted. Polish cropping systems, despite their high inputs, often ranked more favorably due to relatively high yields. For example, the global warming potential (GWP) of camelina sole cropping in Turkey, which had low yield and low carbon sequestration, reached the highest value, compared to chickpea sole and spelt sole cultivation. Intercropping systems such as camelina+spelt and camelina+chickpea had intermediate emissions, while camelina+fenugreek remained among the most emission-intensive systems, largely due to low yield and low carbon sequestration.