Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Silage Maize in Relation to Regenerative Agriculture

Martin Dědina (), Petr Jevič, Pavel Čermák, Jan Moudrý, Chisenga Emmanuel Mukosha, Tomáš Lošák, Tadeáš Hrušovský and Elizaveta Watzlová
Additional contact information
Martin Dědina: Research Institute of Agricultural Engineering, p.r.i., Drnovská 507, 161 01 Prague, Czech Republic
Petr Jevič: Research Institute of Agricultural Engineering, p.r.i., Drnovská 507, 161 01 Prague, Czech Republic
Pavel Čermák: Institute of Animal Science, p.r.i., Přátelství 815, 104 00 Prague, Czech Republic
Jan Moudrý: Department of Agroecosystems, Faculty of Agriculture and Technology, University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice, Branišovská 1645/31A, 370 05 Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic
Chisenga Emmanuel Mukosha: Department of Agroecosystems, Faculty of Agriculture and Technology, University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice, Branišovská 1645/31A, 370 05 Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic
Tomáš Lošák: Department of Agroecosystems, Faculty of Agriculture and Technology, University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice, Branišovská 1645/31A, 370 05 Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic
Tadeáš Hrušovský: Department of Environmental Science and Natural Resources, Faculty of Regional Development and International Studies, Mendel University in Brno, Zemědělská 1, 613 00 Brno, Czech Republic
Elizaveta Watzlová: Department of Water Resources, Faculty of Agrobiology, Food and Natural Resources, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 165 00 Prague, Czech Republic

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 2, 1-15

Abstract: The demand for agricultural products is growing and is resulting in significant environmental impacts due to the overuse of fertilizers (and pesticides in some cases). There is a continued need to find sustainable methods in agricultural systems without harming the environment. Regenerative agriculture can be considered as one of the best methods of sustainable agriculture. The aim of this comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) study was to quantify the environmental impacts associated with the production of silage maize at different doses of fertilizers and pesticides under conventional agriculture and without the use of fertilizers and pesticides under regenerative agriculture. The input data were obtained from the experimental fields and supplemented by background process databases of Ecoinvent, World Food Live Cycle Assessment Database (WFLCD), and the French database AGRIBALYSE. The results of the study were related to six midpoint impact categories: global warming, marine eutrophication, freshwater eutrophication, freshwater ecotoxicity, marine ecotoxicity, and terrestrial ecotoxicity. Although the variant of growing silage maize without the use of fertilizers and pesticides according to the principle of regenerative agriculture showed the lowest burden on the environment, the yields of the cultivated silage maize were 43–55% lower than those of the fertilized variants.

Keywords: agriculture; environment; fertilizers; maize; pesticide; LCA; sustainability; regenerative agriculture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/2/481/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/2/481/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:2:p:481-:d:1313771

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().