The search for approaches to a holistic sustainable agriculture requires the development of new cropping systems that provide additional ecosystem services beyond biomass supply for food, feed, material, and energy use. The reduction of chemical synthetic plant protection products is a key instrument to protect vulnerable natural resources such as groundwater and biodiversity. Together with an optimal use of mineral fertilizer, agroecological practices, and precision agriculture technologies, a complete elimination of chemical synthetic plant protection in mineral-ecological cropping systems (MECSs) may not only improve the environmental performance of agroecosystems, but also ensure their yield performance. Therefore, the development of MECSs aims to improve the overall ecosystem services of agricultural landscapes by (i) improving the provision of regulating ecosystem services compared to conventional cropping systems and (ii) improving the supply of provisioning ecosystem services compared to organic cropping systems. In the present review, all relevant research levels and aspects of this new farming concept are outlined and discussed based on a comprehensive literature review and the ongoing research project “Agriculture 4.0 without Chemical-Synthetic Plant Protection”.
Maize silage is the main biogas co‐substrate in Germany, but its use is often questioned due to negative environmental impacts. Perennial wild plant mixtures (WPM) are increasingly considered alternatives, as these extensive systems improve soil quality and enhance agrobiodiversity. Methane yields per hectare however do not match those of maize. This study examined whether the potential advantages of replacing maize with WPM for biogas production are counteracted by lower yields and associated effects. Life cycle assessment and life cycle cost assessment were used to compare the environmental and economic performance of electricity generation from WPM in two establishment procedures, ‘standard’ (WPM E1) and ‘under maize’ (WPM E2). These metrics were benchmarked against those of maize. The production of 1 kWh electricity was chosen as functional unit. The life cycle inventory of the agricultural phase was based on multi‐annual field trials in southwest Germany. Both WPM E1 and E2 had lower marine eutrophication and global warming potentials than maize. The GWP favourability was however sensitive to the assumptions made with regard to the amount and fate of carbon sequestered in the soil. WPM E1 performed less favourable than WPM E2. This was mainly due to lower yields, which could, in turn, result in potential indirect land use impacts. These impacts may outweigh the carbon sequestration benefits of WPM cultivation. Maize performed best in terms of economic costs, freshwater eutrophication, terrestrial acidification, fine particulate matter and ozone formation. We conclude that the widespread deployment of WPM systems on productive agricultural land should only take place if permanent soil carbon sequestration can be ensured. In either case, WPM cultivation could be a valid alternative for bioenergy buffers and marginal land where competitive yields of common crops cannot be guaranteed, but which could accommodate low‐input cultivation systems.
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a widely recognized tool for the assessment of the potential environmental impacts associated with the life cycle of a product or service. The environmental impact category most commonly quantified in LCAs is global warming potential, a measure of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. For agricultural products such as miscanthus, the creation of an inventory can be labour‐intensive and is context‐specific. This impairs the transfer of results to comparable but not necessarily similar situations. Farmers and small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises cannot easily dedicate resources for this purpose (in particular when using marginal land) and often lack the expertise to do so. Simplified LCA models could offer a promising solution to this problem. They are simplified versions of more complex models that require only a few critical parameters to calculate representative results. This study develops such a model for the computation of GHG emissions associated with commercial miscanthus cultivation. The model focuses on rhizome‐based propagation and the indirect harvesting method (cutting to swath, swathing, baling). A parametric life cycle inventory (LCI) was established and used to identify the most influential parameters by means of a global sensitivity analysis (GSA). A simplified model for calculating GHG emissions associated with miscanthus cultivation was developed by fixing input parameters with a low relevance at their median impact values. Six of 38 parameters were identified as relevant parameters: soil carbon sequestration, harvestable yield, duration of cultivation period, quantities of nitrogen and potassium fertilizer applied, and distance between field and customer. The simplified model allows practitioners an easy assessment of the GHG emissions associated with the production and supply of miscanthus. It thus provides a wider audience facilitated access to LCA knowledge and promotes its use as a management and reporting tool in bio‐based industries.
Agroecosystems provide numerous ecosystem services (ESs) such as provisioning, regulating, habitat and cultural services. At the same time, the management of these agroecosystems can cause various negative impacts on the environment such as the generation of greenhouse gas emissions. However, the way humans manage agroecosystems often focuses only on the production of agricultural goods, which yield monetary benefits in the short term but do not include the positive and negative external effects on ESs. In order to enable a holistic assessment of the economic and environmental costs and benefits, the current study combines the production costs, the monetary value of the ESs provided and the monetization of the environmental impacts caused by the management of agroecosystems using the perennial crop miscanthus as an example. Depending on the scenario assessed, the cultivation of miscanthus leads to a net benefit of 140 to 3051 EUR ha−1 yr−1. The monetary value of the ESs provided by the miscanthus cultivation thereby considerably outweighs the internal and external costs. The approach applied allows for a holistic assessment of the benefits and costs of agroecosystems and thus enables management decisions that are not only based on the biomass yield but include the various interactions with the environment.
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