Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
include; the assessment of several impact categories, some minor system parts of the data
inventory, and a full description of system borders.
Following the LCA process, a life cycle inventory (LCI) inventorying data concerning direct
and indirect energy use and resource consumption were performed in all vital parts of the
system under study. For “conventional“ agriculture, processing and transportation
secondary data were used. For the “alternatives” the 12 ERA farm and food processing and
transporting business in the Järna area were used. The data were then grouped into impact
categories, where one emission may contribute to several categories. This study assess the
impact categories “Global warming impact” and “Use of resources - fossil energy”, since
these two impacts are closely linked to each other and because they were judged to be the
most important ones.
Global warming impact was assessed using global warming potentials (GWP), where all
impacting emissions are transformed into CO
2
-equivalents. Only direct impacting gases
were inventoried, i.e. CO
2
,
CH
4
and N
2
O. The GWP of CH
4
and N
2
O correspond to 23 and
296 CO
2
-equivalents respectively. Of the different time-spans suggested by IPCC (2001) the
100-year perspective was chosen. The inventory of energy use included two categories of
energy carriers - electricity and fossil fuels. These were re-calculated as primary energy, i.e.
the energy used was converted to primary energy resource equivalents, measuring the
consumption of energy resources in the lifecycle of the energy carriers. Transmission losses
in the distribution net (7%), pre-combustion energy consumption for fuels and efficiency in
e.g. hydropower and nuclear power are included in the assessment (Lundgren, 1992). This
made it possible to compare scenarios and activities using mainly electricity with those
using mainly fossil fuels. The results are based on data from the 12 studied Swedish ERA
farms. Whether these perform better or worse than other organic farms is not investigated.
3. Results
Environmental impacts of conventional Swedish food production of an average food basket
(Scenario 1) is compared with food produced with ERA-methods (Scenario 2); food
produced with ERA-methods and processed locally (Scenario 3), and finally with an
alternative food basket with less meat and more vegetables produced with ERA-methods
and processed locally (Scenario 4). First, the results of the household survey are presented.
3.1 The household survey
When studying the results from the Järna survey there are some evident differences between
the consumption patterns of the investigated households and the Swedish average. An
average of 73% of the weight for what is considered 'real food' (sugar, candy, beverages etc.
not included) was reported as being organic, or ecological, in the alternative food
consumption profile, the “eco-local” food basket. In comparison with the national average of
2.2% the figure is very high. Some of the Järna consumers mentioned that they would have
bought more eco-food if it was available and not too expensive. The portion of locally
produced food purchased by the investigated households was found to be substantial for
some product groups, e.g. 56% for cereals and 49% for beef and lamb. On average 33% was
reported being local and organic. It is not possible to compare with national averages
concerning local food but it is reasonable to assume that the average share is very low.
Other important characteristic for the eco-local food basket were the substantially lower
shares of meat and potatoes (75% respectively 57% less) and the higher vegetable
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