Department of Green Chemistry and Technology, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, 9000 Gent, Belgium; Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (ILVO), Burgemeester Van Gansberghelaan 92, 9820 Merelbeke, Belgium.
Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (ILVO), Burgemeester Van Gansberghelaan 92, 9820 Merelbeke, Belgium; Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Faculty of Sciences, Ghent University, Technologiepark 927, 9052 Gent, Belgium.
Sci Total Environ. 2019 Dec 10;695:133841. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.133841. Epub 2019 Aug 7.
Today, there is an ongoing debate about the environmental sustainability of the products of organic farming. To compare the performance of conventional and organic farming systems regarding environmental impact and productivity, the comprehensive environmental assessment tool 'life cycle assessment' can be used. The lower crop yields attained by organic systems compared to conventional farming systems might, however, outweigh the benefits of the use of more environmental-friendly practices when evaluating the environmental impact per product unit. Although these practices are beneficial for the environment, which is reflected in the delivery of a range of ecosystem services (ES), the focus is traditionally put only on the (harvested) product. Because the agricultural product involves actually a bundle of ES, the impact should be allocated among the whole output of an agricultural system. In this study, we propose an allocation procedure based on the capacity of agricultural systems to deliver ES to divide the environmental impact over all agricultural outputs (i.e. provisioning and other ES). Allocation factors are developed for conventional and organic arable farming systems. Applying these allocation factors, we demonstrate that for about half of the studied food products (including maize, potato), organic farming has clear environmental benefits in terms of resource consumption in comparison to conventional cultivation methods. This allocation approach allows a more complete comparison of the environmental sustainability of organically and conventionally produced food.
如今，有机农业产品的环境可持续性问题引发了持续的争论。为了比较传统和有机农业系统在环境影响和生产力方面的表现，可以使用综合环境评估工具“生命周期评估”。然而，与传统农业系统相比，有机系统的作物产量较低，这可能会超过使用更环保实践所带来的好处，从而在评估每单位产品的环境影响时。尽管这些实践对环境有益，这反映在一系列生态系统服务（ES）的提供上，但传统上只关注（收获的）产品。由于农产品实际上涉及一系列生态系统服务，因此应该将影响分配到农业系统的整个产出中。在这项研究中，我们提出了一种基于农业系统提供生态系统服务的能力的分配程序，以将环境影响分配到所有农业产出（即供应和其他生态系统服务）上。为常规和有机耕地农业系统制定了分配系数。应用这些分配系数，我们证明，对于所研究的大约一半食品（包括玉米、土豆），与传统种植方法相比，有机农业在资源消耗方面具有明显的环境优势。这种分配方法可以更全面地比较有机和传统生产的食品的环境可持续性。
