Environmental Impact of Agro-Food Production Systems

Basic knowledge of the main agro-food systems.
Definition of "sustainability" and its meaning for agro-food and agro-energy production systems
Description of the most updated methods for environmental impact assessment: (i) energy indicators, (ii) Life Cycle Assessment
Case studies of the main Italian agricultural processes
1 - Environmental sustainability: definition, different aspects of sustainability, Why to measure the sustainability? Issues and challenges of sustainability assessment
2 - Indicator of energetic performance: applicability and limits, the indexes EROEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested) and CED (Cumulative Energy Demand);
3 Life Cycle Assessment. The holistic approach of life cycle: plus and minus, Why and when to apply LCA. The 4 steps of LCA:
GOAL AND SCOPE DEFINITION. Functional unit: definition, significance, applicative examples; System boundary: background, foreground and core processes, allocation
LIFE CYCLE INVENTORY. Inventory data collection: primary data (directly collected and measured) secondary data (databases and modelling of the main emissions sources of agricultural activities);
LCIA. Conversion of inventory data in environmental impact, selection of the impact categories, characterization and normalisation, sensitivity analysis; DATA INTERPRETATION: identification of environmental key-process for impact mitigation.
4 - Case studies and applicative examples of environmental impact assessment of: i) Cereal cultivation (maize and rice); ii) field operations; iii) dairy process (milk and cheese production), iv) beef production v) renewable energy production from biomass