Energy and Carbon Life Cycle Inventory of a Conventional Agricultural Production in Paraná – Brazil

Abstract

Sustainable food production will be an essential activity in a future scenario of growing population and resource scarcity. The food production sector involves biological, chemical and physical processes that impact the environment in different ways: by energy demand, greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, eutrophication, use of pesticides and pharmaceuticals, deforestation, and desertification, among others. Thus, the environmental impacts and sustainability of food production and consumption are of challenging complexity. For this paper, we studied energy usage and GHG emission in the production of maize, wheat and soybeans by current conventional methods that include the use of agrochemicals in the State of Paraná, Brazil. Detailed data on agricultural inputs and machinery were obtained, and life cycle inventories performed. The results show that fertilizers contribute with the highest GHG emissions and energy impacts in maize and wheat production, while herbicides contribute the most in the soybean production. Fuel is third in importance regarding energy and GHG impact. Labor was found to cause a negligible impact on such productions. Impacts on farm gate value per kilogram are similar to those in the USA and Europe. We conclude that the sustainability of the current food production depends largely on external inputs.