CRETUS Institute, Department of Chemical Engineering, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
Grupo Da Cunha, 15175 Carral, Spain; Dept. of Crop Production and Engineering Projects, High Polytechnich School of Engineering, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 27002 Lugo, Spain.
Sci Total Environ. 2020 Apr 15;713:136720. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.136720. Epub 2020 Jan 15.
For millennia, bread and wheat have been one of the most important sources of nutrients in many civilizations. Today, mechanization and evolution in agriculture and food processing have intensified yields and modified the biological and nutritional aspects of multiple crops and foods. The Galician bread is a reference value of food heritage in Spain, which is made from common wheat grain and is a mixture of indigenous Galician wheat and conventional Spanish wheat. In the pursuit of product excellence, it is interesting to identify the environmental profile as support criteria in decision-making, not only to analyse product environmental sustainability, but also as a marketing element to improve consumer awareness. The paper has a twofold perspective to analyse the environmental burdens of wheat cultivation and the bread sector, using life cycle assessment approach: 1) the comparison of the different types of agricultural systems, i.e. the cultivation of Galician wheat following a strategy of monoculture and crop rotation, certified Galician seed production and its comparison with conventional wheat cultivation and 2) the environmental profile of Galician bread. The functional units chosen were 1 kg of wheat grain transported to the milling facility and 1 kg of Galician bread. The results show that wheat cultivation presents the main environmental impacts of bread production, mainly due to the use of agrochemicals and field emissions. The best cultivation scenario corresponds to a crop rotation system, since chemical fertilisation is not applied. In comparative terms with many staple foods produced in Europe, Galician bread has a low environmental impact. The overall environmental results of bread production draw attention to the dependence of bread and flour manufacturers on the agricultural sector, highlighting the need to share responsibilities across the supply chain. In addition, this study contributes to the stakeholder debate on environmental impacts related to food heritage.
千百年来，面包和小麦一直是许多文明中最重要的营养来源之一。如今，农业和食品加工领域的机械化和演进，已经提高了多种作物和食品的产量，并改变了它们的生物和营养特性。加利西亚面包是西班牙食品遗产的一个基准，它由普通小麦制成，是当地加利西亚小麦和传统西班牙小麦的混合物。在追求卓越产品的过程中，确定环境状况作为决策支持标准是很有趣的，这不仅有助于分析产品的环境可持续性，还可以作为提高消费者意识的营销手段。本文从生命周期评估的角度，对小麦种植和面包行业的环境负担进行了双重分析：1）不同农业系统的比较，即遵循单一栽培和轮作策略的加利西亚小麦种植、经过认证的加利西亚种子生产及其与传统小麦种植的比较，以及 2）加利西亚面包的环境概况。选择的功能单位是 1 公斤运往磨坊的小麦和 1 公斤加利西亚面包。结果表明，小麦种植是面包生产的主要环境影响因素，主要是由于使用了农用化学品和田间排放。最佳的种植方案对应于轮作系统，因为不使用化学肥料。与欧洲许多主食相比，加利西亚面包的环境影响较低。面包生产的整体环境结果引起了人们对面包和面粉制造商对农业部门的依赖的关注，突出了需要在整个供应链中分担责任。此外，本研究有助于利益相关者就与食品遗产相关的环境影响进行辩论。
