Global warming contributions from wheat, sheep meat and wool production in Victoria, Australia – a life cycle assessment

Biswas, Wahidul K.; Graham, John F.; Kelly, K. B.; John, Michele

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2010.05.003

Cited by 89 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Total production and yields were divided amongst states according to Inventory data for wheat farming in Australia was somewhat limited with regards to the potentially broad scale of horizontal averaging (since Australia is such a big country), both temporally and geographically. Inventories also contained a lot of discrepancies with regards to fertilizer use, diesel use and yields (Biswas et al 2008;Biswas et al 2010;Maraseni and Cockfield 2011;Ridoutt et al 2013). The resulting unit process based upon the available literature is presented in Table 89.…”

Section: Wheat Production In Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of Asian Aquaculture Products by Use of Statistically Supported Life Cycle Assessment

Henriksson

Rico

Zhang

et al. 2015

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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We investigated aquaculture production of Asian tiger shrimp, whiteleg shrimp, giant river prawn, tilapia, and pangasius catfish in Bangladesh, China, Thailand, and Vietnam by using life cycle assessments (LCAs), with the purpose of evaluating the comparative eco-efficiency of producing different aquatic food products. Our starting hypothesis was that different production systems are associated with significantly different environmental impacts, as the production of these aquatic species differs in intensity and management practices. In order to test this hypothesis, we estimated each system's global warming, eutrophication, and freshwater ecotoxicity impacts. The contribution to these impacts and the overall dispersions relative to results were propagated by Monte Carlo simulations and dependent sampling. Paired testing showed significant (p < 0.05) differences between the median impacts of most production systems in the intraspecies comparisons, even after a Bonferroni correction. For the full distributions instead of only the median, only for Asian tiger shrimp did more than 95% of the propagated Monte Carlo results favor certain farming systems. The major environmental hot-spots driving the differences in environmental performance among systems were fishmeal from mixed fisheries for global warming, pond runoff and sediment discards for eutrophication, and agricultural pesticides, metals, benzalkonium chloride, and other chlorine-releasing compounds for freshwater ecotoxicity. The Asian aquaculture industry should therefore strive toward farming systems relying upon pelleted species-specific feeds, where the fishmeal inclusion is limited and sourced sustainably. Also, excessive nutrients should be recycled in integrated organic agriculture together with efficient aeration solutions powered by renewable energy sources.

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Section: Wheat Production In Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of Asian Aquaculture Products by Use of Statistically Supported Life Cycle Assessment

Henriksson

Rico

Zhang

et al. 2015

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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“…There is also the potential use of nitrogen fertilisers in pastures emitting N 2 O (Luo et al, 2010). Among these GHG, the most important is CH 4 , due to the relatively large amount emitted (Beauchemin et al, 2008;Biswas et al, 2010;Steinfeld et al, 2006). Seasonal changes in cattle production efficiency combined with the constant attention given by the media in highlighting beef cattle as a major source of GHG, has pushed for limitations of the cattle herds in an attempt to minimise their putative, negative and environmental effects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon footprint in different beef production systems on a southern Brazilian farm: a case study

Ruviaro

Léis²,

Lampert

et al. 2015

Journal of Cleaner Production

105

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a b s t r a c tThe carbon footprint (CF) of beef production is one of the most widely discussed environmental issues within the current agricultural community due to its association with climate change. Because of these relevant and serious concerns, the beef cattle industry is under increasing pressure to reduce production or implement technological changes with significant consequences in terms of beef marketing. The goals of this study were to evaluate the CF per 1 kg of live weight gain (LWG) at the farm gate for different beef production systems in the southern part of Brazil. Aberdeen Angus beef-bred cattle were assigned to one of seven categories: natural grass; improved natural grass; natural grass plus ryegrass; improved natural grass plus sorghum; cultivated ryegrass and sorghum; natural grass supplemented with protein mineralised salt; and natural grass supplemented with protein-energetic mineralised salt. Monte Carlo analysis was employed to analyse the effect of variations of dry matter intake digestibility (DMID), total digestible nutrients (TDN) and crude protein (CP) parameters in methane (CH 4 ) enteric, CH 4 manure, nitrous oxide (N 2 O) manure and N 2 O N-fertiliser. The method used was a comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) centred on the CF. The CF varied from 18.3 kg CO 2 equivalent/kg LWG for the ryegrass and sorghum pasture system to 42.6 kg CO 2 equivalent/kg LWG for the natural grass system, including the contributions of cows, calves and steers. Among all grassland-based cattle farms, production systems with DMID from 52 to 59% achieved the lowest CO 2 emissions and the highest feed conversion rate, thereby generating lower CH 4 and N 2 O emissions per production system. Because the feed intake and feed conversion rate are one of the most important production parameters in beef cattle production with an obvious risk of data uncertainty, accurate feed data, which include quantity and quality, are important in estimates of CF for LWG. The choice of adequate feeding strategies to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions may result in better environmental advantages.

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“…The complete study of these types of impacts and opportunities for intervention requires application of 'adaptation science' (Howden et al 2007;Meinke et al 2009) and studies of the impact of agriculture itself on global warming (e.g. Biswas et al 2010;Huth et al 2010), but here we limit our interest to the more direct impacts of climate change on plant pests and plant production and quality in food, fibre, and forestry systems. Hatfield and Prueger (2011) concisely review the agro-ecological implications of climate change for plant responses, considering growth, yield, and quality, and they emphasise the importance of interactions among the factors of elevated CO 2 , temperature, rainfall patterns, and nitrogen (N) fertiliser.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant adaptation to climate change—opportunities and priorities in breeding

et al. 2012

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Abstract. Climate change in Australia is expected to influence crop growing conditions through direct increases in elevated carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and average temperature, and through increases in the variability of climate, with potential to increase the occurrence of abiotic stresses such as heat, drought, waterlogging, and salinity. Associated effects of climate change and higher CO 2 concentrations include impacts on the water-use efficiency of dryland and irrigated crop production, and potential effects on biosecurity, production, and quality of product via impacts on endemic and introduced pests and diseases, and tolerance to these challenges. Direct adaptation to these changes can occur through changes in crop, farm, and value-chain management and via economically driven, geographic shifts where different production systems operate. Within specific crops, a longer term adaptation is the breeding of new varieties that have an improved performance in 'future' growing conditions compared with existing varieties.In crops, breeding is an appropriate adaptation response where it complements management changes, or when the required management changes are too expensive or impractical. Breeding requires the assessment of genetic diversity for adaptation, and the selection and recombining of genetic resources into new varieties for production systems for projected future climate and atmospheric conditions. As in the past, an essential priority entering into a 'climate-changed' era will be breeding for resistance or tolerance to the effects of existing and new pests and diseases. Hence, research on the potential incidence and intensity of biotic stresses, and the opportunities for breeding solutions, is essential to prioritise investment, as the consequences could be catastrophic. The values of breeding activities to adapt to the five major abiotic effects of climate change (heat, drought, waterlogging, salinity, and elevated CO 2 ) are more difficult to rank, and vary with species and production area, with impacts on both yield and quality of product. Although there is a high likelihood of future increases in atmospheric CO 2 concentrations and temperatures across Australia, there is uncertainty about the direction and magnitude of rainfall change, particularly in the northern farming regions. Consequently, the clearest opportunities for 'in-situ' genetic gains for abiotic stresses are in developing better adaptation to higher temperatures (e.g. control of phenological stage durations, and tolerance to stress) and, for C 3 species, in exploiting the (relatively small) fertilisation effects of elevated CO 2 . For most cultivated plant species, it remains to be demonstrated how much genetic variation exists for these traits and what value can be delivered via commercial varieties. Biotechnology-based breeding technologies (marker-assisted breeding and genetic modification) will be essential to accelerate genetic gain, but their application requires additional investment in the understanding, genetic characterisation,...

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Global warming contributions from wheat, sheep meat and wool production in Victoria, Australia – a life cycle assessment

Cited by 89 publications

References 14 publications

Comparison of Asian Aquaculture Products by Use of Statistically Supported Life Cycle Assessment

Comparison of Asian Aquaculture Products by Use of Statistically Supported Life Cycle Assessment

Carbon footprint in different beef production systems on a southern Brazilian farm: a case study

Plant adaptation to climate change—opportunities and priorities in breeding

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