Modeling the Agri-Food Industry with Life Cycle Assessment

The food and drink sector accounts for about twenty to thirty percent of the overall environmental impact deriving from private consumption. The recent increase in attention by researchers to food life cycle assessment (LCA) is also due to the fact that methodological issues are different from the typical ones arising from industrial product LCAs: definition of the functional unit, difficulties in data collection in the agricultural and zootechnical phases and relative deficiencies in databases, pesticides and their exposure, fertilizer dispersion models, and impact categories of land use and water use constitute some of the main topics on which further research efforts are needed. Through case studies, this chapter highlights typical methodological issues of food LCA and how they have been treated and managed. It emphasizes the strong need for a harmonized framework for food LCA, and for data for the agri-food chains, in both agricultural and industrial applications. Similarly, spatial data and models are needed to take into account the different pedoclimatic conditions, as well as data for emissions to the atmosphere, water, and soil from industrial food plants.