Kiyotada Hayashi

Practical recommendations for supporting agricultural decisions through life cycle assessment based on two alternative views of crop production: the example of organic conversion

PurposeEarlier studies on agricultural life cycle assessment recommend that practitioners use two functional units—product weight and land area—because agriculture entails commodity production and land use. However, there are still ambiguities in this approach from the perspective of decision support. The purpose of this paper is to provide recommendations to support farming conversion decisions on the basis of a framework constructed on two alternative views of agricultural production. Organic conversion of arable farming is selected as a case study.MethodsFour types of conversion were constructed on the basis of land-oriented expression, in which inputs into and outputs from land were depicted, and product-oriented expression, in which inputs into and outputs from products were depicted. Then, the frequencies for each type were counted using LCI databases and data from journal papers.ResultsThe results can be summarized as follows: (1) trade-off conversion, in which improvements in environmental impacts per area unit are involved in decrease of yield per area unit, is common. (2) Conversion tended to be efficient; that is, environmental impacts per product unit tended to improve. (3) Within trade-off conversion, the conversion tended to be efficient. (4) When conversion was efficient, there were trade-offs.ConclusionsSince the results for one expression were not always derivable from the results for another expression, the recommendation of this study is to use the two expressions complementarily, knowing that win–win conversion is rare. In addition, there is a general recommendation to use decision criteria rather than trying to make decisions on the basis of multiple functional units because comparisons based on the two functional units are not on the same level.

Life cycle assessment of organic paddy rotation systems using land- and product-based indicators: a case study in Japan

PurposeThis study aims to compare crop rotation systems used in organic farming (organic rotation systems) with those of both conventional farming (conventional rotation systems) and continuous rice cropping systems. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is performed based on land- and product-based indicators.MethodsSeven crop rotation systems for rice, barley, and soybeans and continuous rice production systems were evaluated in this study. These systems are practiced by farmers in the study region and were constructed using production records, statistics, and guidelines. Comparisons were then made between organic and conventional crop rotation systems and between these crop rotation systems and a continuous rice production system. We used land-oriented expression to analyze tradeoffs between physical and monetary productivity and the environmental impact per area unit and product-oriented expression to analyze efficiency as measured by the environmental impact per product unit.Results and discussionResults are summarized as follows: (1) The product-oriented expression, which is equivalent to conducting product LCA, revealed that organic conversion tended to be efficient, irrespective of using physical productivity (the functional unit of product mass measured as averaged annual energy yield) or using monetary productivity (the functional unit of product mass measured as averaged annual income). (2) However, the land-oriented expression revealed that there were tradeoffs between physical productivity and environmental impacts, although these tradeoffs were converted to win–win relationships if monetary productivity was used instead of physical productivity, and (3) the alteration of a continuous rice production system into crop rotations tended to be efficient and enables a win–win relationship.ConclusionsOrganic rotation systems have the potential of being recommended as sustainable agricultural practices in comparison with conventional rotation systems and continuous (organic and conventional) rice production systems. However, it was not clarified which productivity concepts should be used as evaluation criteria. It is considered that further studies using mechanistic modeling of crop rotations are required to improve LCA practices.

Assessing Management Influence on Environmental Impacts Under Uncertainty: A Case Study of Paddy Rice Production in Japan

The potential eco-synergetic effects of using two waste flowsfor the substitution of mineral fertilisers is assessed from nutrient and environmental points of view. The two wastes are: composted organic municipal waste (slow release of nutrients) and nitrate polluted water (rapid nitrogen release).Catalonia is selected as a representative Mediterranean area of study. Macro-data at county level was used for the calculations, geographic information system, for the illustrations, and IPCC impact factors, for the environmental quantification. Compost and polluted water are able to supply 35-50% of the nutrient demand of Catalan horticulture production (330,000 tons of horticulture products per year), leading to reduction of 46% of the global warming potential of mineral fertiliser production.Moremineral fertilisersare saved in urban and agriculture intensive areas.

Linking environment-productivity trade-offs and correlated uncertainties: Greenhouse gas emissions and crop productivity in paddy rice production systems

In comparative life cycle assessments of agricultural production systems, analyses of both the trade-offs between environmental impacts and crop productivity and of the uncertainties specific to agriculture such as fluctuations in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and crop yields are crucial. However, these two issues are usually analyzed separately. In this paper, we present a framework to link trade-off and uncertainty analyses; correlated uncertainties are integrated into environment-productivity trade-off analyses. We compared three rice production systems in Japan: a system using a pelletized, nitrogen-concentrated organic fertilizer made from poultry manure using closed-air composting techniques (high-N system), a system using a conventional organic fertilizer made from poultry manure using open-air composting techniques (low-N system), and a system using a chemical compound fertilizer (conventional system). We focused on two important sources of uncertainties in paddy rice cultivation-methane emissions from paddy fields and crop yields. We found trade-offs between the conventional and high-N systems and the low-N system and the existence of positively correlated uncertainties in the conventional and high-N systems. We concluded that our framework is effective in recommending the high-N system compared with the low-N system, although the performance of the former is almost the same as the conventional system.

The 10th International Conference on EcoBalance (EcoBalance 2012) - Challenges and Solutions for Sustainable Society, November 20-23, 2012, Tokyo, Japan

The 10th International Conference on EcoBalance (EcoBalance 2012), organized by The Institute of Life Cycle Assessment, Japan, was held during November 20–23, 2012 at the Hiyoshi Campus of Keio University in Yokohama City. The conference was co-hosted by Keio University and The Ecomaterial Forum, and backed by the Cabinet Office; the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology; the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry; the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism; and the Ministry of Environment. It was also supported by 74 related societies and associations. The Commemorative Organization for the Japan World Exposition ‘70 and the Life Cycle Assessment Society of Japan provided monetary aid for the management of the conference. In addition, the event was co-sponsored by the following eight corporations and groups:

Life cycle assessment of energy crop production with special attention to the establishment of regional biomass utilisation systems

We conducted a life cycle assessment of energy crop production for bioethanol to clarify the potentialities of biomass utilisation systems in Japan, focusing on cumulative fossil energy demand and global warming potential. Their reductions were evaluated under two scenarios; one was improving cultivation technologies and breeding of new crop varieties, and the other was setting up of regional biomass utilisation systems, in which biomass resources from various industries were utilised mutually and effectively. It was proved that the improvement in cultivation technologies and the establishment of regional biomass utilisation systems have large potential for saving fossil fuel resources and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Although these results largely depend on scenarios including the lifetime and coverage area of agricultural machinery, and types of biomass utilisation, it was concluded that substitution of petrol by bioethanol converted from these energy crops has considerable potential for rendering our society more sustainable.

A New Conceptual Framework for Assessing Rural Development Performance: Sustainability of Scale, Scope and Integration

Many sustainability indicators have been used for assessing rural development. They evaluate relative performance of alternative rural development projects and programs from economic, environmental and social perspectives. However, they do not illustrate why a project outperforms others and thus a conceptual framework for explaining the results is needed. Here, we present a new framework for assessing rural development performance on the basis of sustainability of scale, scope and integration. The framework we developed can be expressed as a 3 × 3 matrix. Row headings include “economy”, “ecology” and “sociology”, which explain three pillars of sustainability. Column headings contain “scale”, “scope” and “integration”, which illustrate three types of strategies. Each cell explains the concepts: such as “economy of scale”, which is a classical concept for describing reduction in cost per unit as the increase of production; “ecology of scope”, which will be useful in illustrating the fact that environmental impacts of diversified production can be small; and “sociology of integration”, which can be used as a concept for justifying rural activities such as local-production and local-consumption. After presenting an outline of the new conceptual framework, tripartition of strategies and tripartition of criteria are illustrated. Then, theoretical and practical implications of the framework are discussed using the concepts such as eco-industrial parks.

Ecological-economic assessment of farms using multi-input multi-output models: life cycle assessment with multiple paired comparisons

A multi-input multi-output model is developed by extending the life cycle assessment framework for analysing the relationship between agricultural production and environmental impacts. The inputs include farmland and materials such as fertilisers, pesticides and animals. The outputs are of two types: one is agro-economic production, such as crop yields, and the other is environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions. Additive and ratio models are defined for analysing the relationship between management intensity, land productivity and environmental impacts based on the farm model. After the framework of multiple paired comparisons is illustrated, the multi-input multi-output model is applied to rice farming in Japan. The results indicate that the additive and ratio models can be used for detecting the directions of changes. These models can be extended for analysing the land-use competition between food and energy production.

Conservation: model management intensity.

B. Phalan and colleagues (“Reconciling food production and biodiversity conservation: Land sharing and land sparing compared,” Reports, 2 September, p. [1289][1]) report that land sparing would do less harm to biodiversity than land sharing and conclude that the best strategy for conserving

EcoBalance 2016-responsible value chains for sustainability (October 3-6, 2016, Kyoto, Japan)

The International Conference on EcoBalance, organized by the Institute of Life Cycle Assessment, Japan (ILCAJ), has been held as a biennial conference in Japan since 1994 (Morimoto 1999; The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 2000; Inaba et al. 2003; Matsuno et al. 2005; Matsuno and Moriguchi 2007; Nakajima and Matsuno 2009; Nansai et al. 2011; Miyamoto et al. 2013; Kondo et al. 2014). With the life cycle concept as its core concept, EcoBalance has become recognized as one of the world’s premier conferences for academic, industry and government professionals. EcoBalance serves as a forum for discussions on environmental performance evaluation, information disclosure regarding evaluation results, and for the development and implementation of the methods discussed. The 12th EcoBalance conference, EcoBalance 2016, was convened on 3–6 October 2016 in Kyoto, Japan. The overall theme of EcoBalance 2016 was, BResponsible value chains for sustainability .̂ EcoBalance 2016 aimed to discuss the challenges associated with incorporating sustainable value chains that create corporate value in business, collaborating with various stakeholders, and identifying solutions based on scientific knowledge. Given this context, we invited three distinguished keynote speakers who shared their insights on the role of life cycle thinking and how it can be used to achieve responsible value chains. In the scientific program, 310 presentations covered overarching topics (methodology of life cycle assessment (LCA), applications in practice, policy implications, etc.), and intensive discussions were used to forge links between the areas of science, real practice and policymaking. Over the course of the conference, 372 international attendees from 28 countries contributed to numerous valuable discussions. In addition to the main scientific program, several official side-events were convened on corporate information disclosure, E-waste, sustainable food supply chains, urban mining and global LCA data access network. This year, we convened an BEcoBalance International School^ on a trial basis to provide attendees with the opportunity to acquire fundamental, but state-of-the-art, knowledge on life cycle assessment from distinguished international experts. These two courses, BLife Cycle Assessment: theory and practice^ by Prof. Sangwon Suh from the University of California, Santa Barbara in the USA, and BCurrent Developments in Life Cycle Impact Assessment^ by Prof. Francesca Verones from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Norway were both well attended. A Young Researchers Meeting was also held to give young attendees the opportunity to communicate with each other and network. Taken together, these events helped attendees to benefit from their * Masaharu Motoshita m-motoshita@aist.go.jp