Agriculture Reference
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alternative “eco-local” food basket. Two processing and transportation scenarios were used.
“Conventional”, mainly large-scale food processing with long-distance transports (data in
most cases earlier reported in Carlsson-Kanyama et al. (2004)) and “Local” based on data
collected from businesses in Järna, a rural community south of Stockholm.
Four scenarios representing different combinations of agricultural production systems, food
consumption profiles, and food processing and transportation systems were combined to
answer the research questions. The scenarios are:
1. Conventional scenario - average Swedish food consumption profile, average Swedish
agriculture, and conventional food processing and transports.
2. Conventional consumption from ERA farms - average Swedish food consumption
profile, ERA farms, and conventional food processing and transports.
3. Local consumption from ERA farms - average Swedish food consumption profile, ERA
farms, and local (small-scale) food processing and transports.
4. More vegetarian and local consumption from ERA farms - an alternative food
consumption profile (e.g. less and different kinds of meat), ERA farms, and local (small-
scale) food processing and transports.
To achieve a match between consumption and production in the second and third scenarios
when ERA farms produce the food for the average Swedish food consumption profile it was
necessary with the assumption that the consumption volumes of ruminant meat (beef and
lamb) and monogastric meat (pork and poultry) can be exchanged depending on the higher
share of ruminant meat production on the documented ERA farms.
In all 12 organic, or ERA, farms were studied. The farms were selected to be representative
for the main farming conditions and production types in Sweden. They were studied during
the years 2002-2004. The studied farms are spread over central and southern Sweden with a
concentration (6 out of 12) in the Järna region. Farm characteristics, production data and use
of resources were inventoried using interviews and farm accounts. Corresponding data for
average Swedish agriculture was obtained from Statistics Sweden (2005).
Ecological Recycling Agriculture (ERA) is a local organic agriculture system based on
local and renewable resources. ERA produces food and other agriculture products
according to the following basic ecological principles (Granstedt, 2005):
1. Protection of biodiversity.
2. Use of renewable energy.
3. Recycling of plant nutrients.
In consequence with these principles an ERA farm is defined as an organic (ecological)
managed farm according the IFOAM standards 2 with no use of neither pesticides nor
artificial fertilizers (IFOAM principles 1 and 2) and with the additional condition of a
high rate of recycling of nutrients based on organic, integrated crop and animal
production. A higher degree of internal recycling within the system enables reduced
external input of nitrogen. Nitrogen requirements are covered through biological
nitrogen fixation of mainly clover/grass leys. There is only a limited deficit of
phosphorus and potassium in the input and output balance according to previous studies
2 IFOAM, International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements. The standards are described at
www.ifoam.org.
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