Environmental and socio-economic performance of different tillage systems in maize grain production: Application of Life Cycle Assessment and Multi-Criteria Decision Making

Abstract

Abstract The growing need for additional production due to high global food demand should be supplied through sustainable intensification of agriculture. In Poland, conventional tillage with deep full ploughing is still the most common practice, however, it may harm the environment and natural resources. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the sustainability of no tillage (NT), reduced tillage (RT) and conventional tillage (CT) in grain maize monoculture based on economic, environmental, and social aspects. Based on the outcomes of long-term field experiments conducted at the Agricultural Experimental Station in Grabow (Mazowieckie Voivodship), life cycle assessment (LCA) and fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) were applied to evaluate tillage systems and calculate the criteria weights. Results showed better performance for CT on economic and social criteria while NT and RT had better performances on environmental criteria. The final evaluation illustrated the greatest overall performance for CT followed by RT and NT. Findings emphasized that, in order to achieve a comprehensive view, it is necessary to study the impact of main criteria weights and annual yield variation conditions on the overall performance of alternatives. Sensitivity analysis was conducted combining five weights sets and two production scenarios conditions. The results showed that, except for the environmental criteria, in all other cases CT had the best performance. Moreover, it was illustrated that yield had a significant impact on the overall performance of the tillage systems. The results of final ranking introduced NT with the best performance in a year with the lowest level of grain yield, while on the contrary, under favorable conditions for maximum grain yield, CT was ranked first. According to the obtained results, it is concluded that expectations of climate change leading to increased yield variability may play an important role in the development of conservation tillage systems (RT and NT) in the studied area in Poland.