Innovations are increasingly needed by companies to engage in new market competitiveness. Conscientious consumers are demanding sustainable products and services, and “new qualities” are requested, ...such as environmental protection, social equitability and economic viability. To satisfy this demand, companies are struggling to find innovative solutions to sustainability concerns.
The present paper proposes an innovative and integrated approach, i.e., the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment, a methodology that is still under development within the conceptual framework of Life Cycle Thinking (Klöpffer, 2008). Life Cycle Assessment, Life Cycle Costing and social Life Cycle Assessment are integrated here by means of a multicriterial and participative method, the Analytic Hierarchy Process.
This case study is about growing Calabrian olives, which is the most important crop in terms of surface area at a regional level. The study focuses on an important agronomic practice, i.e., weeding. The functional unit is 1 ha of cultivated surface, and the system boundary is “from cradle to farm gate”. The time boundary considered here is the expected life of an olive tree corresponding to 50 years. All of the primary data have been gathered through specific in-field surveys with semi-structured questionnaires to farmers and workers.
Nine impact categories and quantitative indicators, direct and/or proxy, cover the three primary sustainability dimensions, i.e., environment, economy and society. Three scenarios have been chosen for their relevance to the Calabrian panorama as follows:
- a control scenario (CS), which is represented by the conventional and traditional farming system, that commonly recurs according to the use of chemicals for weed and pest control;
- a low-dosage/no-tillage (LDNT) scenario, as represented by a reduced use of chemicals; and.
- a zero chemical weeding (ZCW) scenario, representing the organic farming system.
The results of the multicriterial analysis revealed that the greatest stakeholder concerns are environmental and social sustainability, especially in terms of toxicity and worker health. According to these preferences, low-dosage/no-tillage was the best scenario, with better performance for all of the selected categories except for job opportunities.
Holistic sustainability assessments, especially those involving relevant stakeholders, are essential strategies for successfully satisfying and retaining customers, and the present epistemological hybrid proposal to the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment could serve this purpose.
Olive cultivation for oil production in Tunisia covers from traditional to innovate cropping systems. The aim of the study was to assess the environmental footprint of the most representative olive ...growing systems of the actual production of olive fruit in Tunisia, from the planting phase to the full production phase, during a reference period of the life cycle of the olive growth of 50 years. Six traditional systems, two intensive systems and one super-intensive system were compared and the differences of type of production (conventional or organic), irrigation management and fertilization management were selected. The impacts associated to olive production were calculated and evaluated by the Life Cycle Assessment methodology and the results of this study were referred to two functional units: 1 ton of olives and 1 ha of cultivated olive growing area. Field agricultural practices of olive systems were soil management, fertilizers, pesticides, pruning and harvesting. The impact categories selected for the environmental analysis were climate change, acidification, freshwater eutrophication and freshwater ecotoxicity. The most innovative olive production systems (intensive and super-intensive) resulted in less environmental impacts for all categories with respect to the rest of systems from the productive perspective but produced higher impacts per hectare of cultivated area. Fertilizers and soil management were the field agricultural practices that presented the highest contributions in most of the categories evaluated. The implementation of an integrated crop management, as well as good practice guides and training programs for farmers, should be considered a priority.
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•This is the first LCA study for the olive growing systems in Tunisia.•Optimizing the productivity of traditional olive systems should be a priority.•The organic systems showed the lowest environmental impacts in all categories.•Fertilizers was the field agricultural practice with the highest contributions.•ICIF2 and SICIF showed the lowest environmental impact and highest productivity.
In addition to safeguarding the landscape, olive growing makes a unique contribution to protecting the environment and the agricultural ecosystem. Olive growing in mountainous and hilly areas is ...severely constrained by structural limitations. Rural tourism can be a potential strategy to increase the competitiveness of olive-growing activities. After an initial analysis of the relationship between landscape, tourism, and olive growing, this study focused on olive growing in the Nebrodi area. In particular, we examined two case studies of olive farms to analyze the related production costs and market positioning strategies.
The abandonment of agricultural activity has multiple negative economic, environmental and social impacts in rural areas. As a consequence of different socioeconomic, political, environmental and ...technical drivers, this phenomenon shows an increasing trend in olive groves in disadvantaged and sloping areas. This paper analyses, for the case of sloping olive groves in Andalusia, the main olive-growing region in the world, the explanatory factors (abandonment factors) and alternatives to this abandonment, such as organic and conventional olive growing, as well as the explanatory factors of the adoption (adoption factors) of the best of these alternatives.The aim is to provide insights for the development of public policies to avoid or mitigate the negative effects of abandonment and to promote the adoption of the best alternative to abandonment. The results indicate that, as an alternative to abandonment, organic farming is a better option than conventional farming, from an economic, environmental and agronomic point of view. The surface area of olive grove fields is the main structural variable to be increased in order to reduce the risk of abandonment and to promote conversion to organic farming. This can be done through land consolidation, tax exemption measures for the purchase/sale of olive groves and the promotion of cooperatives. It is also important to promote the professionalisation of the sector, following the philosophy of the active/genuine farmer of the CAP, and to develop awareness programmes for olive grove managers focusing not only on the economic advantages of organic farming but also on the generation of public goods. Knowledge transfer is needed through traditional sources such as agricultural associations, and through more institutional and less used sources of information such as universities, public research bodies and technology centres, because of their public service vocation.
•Abandoning agriculture has negative economic, environmental and social impacts.•Andalusia is the main olive growing region in the world.•Organic farming is a better option than conventional farming for sloping olive groves.•Increasing the surface area of farms should be a priority policy.•Professionalisation and knowledge transfer to the sector are also necessary.
► We propose the use of directional distance functions and Data Envelopment Analysis techniques to assess eco-efficiency. ► We compute indicators of eco-efficiency representing different objectives ...regarding economic and ecological performance. ► Our methodological approach is applied to olive-growing in Southern Spain. ► Eco-inefficient management is a widespread practice across olive farmers.
Eco-efficiency is a matter of concern at present that is receiving increasing attention in political, academic and business circles. Broadly speaking, this concept refers to the ability to create more goods and services with less impact on the environment and less consumption of natural resources, thus involving both economic and also ecological issues. In this paper we propose the use of directional distance functions and Data Envelopment Analysis techniques to assess eco-efficiency. More specifically, we show how these functions can be used to compute a wide range of indicators representing different objectives regarding economic and ecological performance. This methodological approach is applied to a sample of Spanish olive-growing farms to illustrate its great potential to provide policymakers and farm managers with sound information as a basis for strategic decision making. We also suggest further avenues to explore in this burgeoning line of research.
Recently, the Spanish olive sector has undergone deep changes regarding agronomic practices. Olive grove cultivation tends to move from traditional low-density to new high-density cropping systems. ...Irrigation has produced a major change in the olive grove sector and the integrated production plays an important role due to the application of rational farming techniques. The aim of this study was to compare the environmental impacts of a high diversity of olive growing systems existing in Spain, including the integrated production systems. The Life Cycle Assessment methodology has been used to calculate and evaluate potential environmental impacts associated to the olives production phase from the extraction of the raw materials to the oil mill gate. Eight traditional systems, three intensive systems and one super-intensive system were selected to be compared. The agricultural practices were grouped in different stages each one including processes and flows: irrigation, soil management, pruning, fertilizers, pesticides and harvesting. Impact categories such as climate change, acidification, freshwater eutrophication, freshwater ecotoxicity, land use and water resource depletion were selected. The fertilizers stage was clearly the highest contributor in all impact categories, specifically, in the climate change and acidification categories in the intensive not irrigated conventional system. Thus, optimization of fertilization should be the first priority to optimize olive growing. The systems that showed the largest environmental impact for most categories were the intensive irrigated integrated system and the super-intensive irrigated integrated system, despite having higher productivity compared to the rest. The organic systems presented the lowest impacts but should improve their productivity. Integrated production was the best olive fruit production system from an overall environmental and productive point of view, especially the traditional mechanized systems.
•This is the first LCA study for the olive oil growing systems in Spain.•LCA methodology proved to be a useful tool to evaluate the environment burdens.•Optimization of fertilization should be the first priority to optimize olive growing.•TMRI and TMII were the systems with minor environmental impact and high productivity.
The olive value chain represents one of the most important bioeconomic sectors for Portugal, having this country the opportunity to emerge as the third-largest worldwide olive oil producer in the ...upcoming decade due to the modernization of its olive groves. Traditional rainfed production systems have been replaced by new intensive olive systems, with high-density, irrigated and mechanically harvested, which are leading to significant changes in the Portuguese olive sector. A very limited number of studies are available aiming at a deeper understanding of the consequences of these modifications, especially focused on the environmental dimension. Considering this gap of knowledge, this work aims the comparative analysis of the environmental impacts caused by three different Portuguese olive production systems: traditional rainfed (T), intensive (I) and super-intensive (SI) systems, during their entire life cycle in a reference period of 50 years, using a life cycle assessment methodology. The different agricultural practices used in the systems were grouped in six categories such as fertilization, harvesting, irrigation, phytosanitary control, pruning and soil management. Biomass valorization (resulting from pruning and plant removal) to produce electricity was assessed. Two strategies for dealing with multifunctionality in olive groves were analyzed: i) allocation based on economic criteria (market prices) and ii) substitution (“avoided burden approach”) of biomass valorization. Seven impact categories were selected and 1 hectare (ha) of cultivated olive growing area was adopted as functional unit. Super-intensive production systems resulted in higher environmental impacts for all categories (from 2.1 to 135.6 times higher when comparing with traditional rainfed systems and 1.2 to 2.8 times higher when comparing with intensive systems) and fertilization was the agricultural practice with the highest contributions for the environmental impacts in most of the categories, in the three systems under study. The multifunctionality approaches adopted significantly influenced the results, minimizing the environmental impacts of the olive production systems. This work highlights the importance of optimize agricultural practices during the entire life cycle of an olive grove, proposing measures to overcome and minimize environmental impacts, and suggesting the valorization of traditional varieties (namely ‘Galega vulgar’) in intensive systems, as a way of combining better productivity with less environmental impacts.
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•First LCA for three Portuguese olive groves considering systems multifunctionality.•Super-intensive systems showed highest impacts considering 1 ha of olive grove.•Allocation methods caused environmental savings in all impact categories.•Agricultural practices enhancement contributes to olive groves sustainability.•Intensive systems were proposed to combine better productivity with less impacts.
The present research had two aims. The first was to evaluate the effect of height and exposure on the vegetative response of olive canopies' vertical axis studied through a multispectral sensor and ...on the qualitative and quantitative product characteristics. The second was to examine the relationship between multispectral data and productive characteristics. Six olive plants were sampled, and their canopy's vertical axis was subdivided into four sectors based on two heights (Top and Low) and two exposures (West and East). A ground-vehicle-mounted multispectral proximal sensor (OptRx from AgLeader
) was used to investigate the different behaviours of the olive canopy vegetation index (VI) responses in each sector. A selective harvest was performed, in which each plant and sector were harvested separately. Product characterisation was conducted to investigate the response of the products (both olives and oils) in each sector. The results of Tukey's test (
> 0.05) showed a significant effect of height for the VI responses, with the Low sector obtaining higher values than the Top sector. The olive product showed some height and exposure effect, particularly for the olives' dimension and resistance to detachment, which was statistically higher in the upper part of the canopies. The regression studies highlighted some relationships between the VIs and product characteristics, particularly for resistance to detachments (R
= 0.44-0.63), which can affect harvest management. In conclusion, the results showed the complexity of the olive canopies' response to multispectral data collection, highlighting the need to study the vertical axis to assess the variability of the canopy itself. The relationship between multispectral data and product characteristics must be further investigated.
Olive agroecosystems have for several decades undergone management changes aimed to meet the demands of new agricultural policy trends and of consumers and society. While the main role of olive ...groves is the production of olives and oil, its multifunctional performance is supported through the European and regional legislative framework, promoting the recognition of non-productive ecosystem services provided by agriculture to society. The objective of this work is to compare two types of olive grove management (integrated and ecological) under the multifunctionality of agriculture (MFA) approach, in Estepa (Andalusia, Spain). To this end, environmental, economic and social indicators were considered. Subsequently, the multifunctional behaviour of olive groves under different management schemes was evaluated using the multicriteria Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) methodology. Ecological farming presented greater valuation in the satisfaction of social demands, with better weightings in all the indicators evaluated, except for farm income and Lepidoptera richness. Thus, the implementation of practices related to ecological management leads to a greater multifunctionality of olive groves. It is thus fundamental that multi-scale policies consider the value of the environmental externalities of this type of management, favouring its implementation to contribute positively to the multifunctionality and sustainability of olive groves in Andalusia.
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•A multifunctional analysis of olive groves with AHP was carried in south Spain.•Integrated olive groves showed a higher farm income than ecological olive groves.•Ecological management showed better results in social and environmental indicators.•Ecological farming contributes more in satisfying social demands to agriculture.•Political support is essential to guarantee the benefits of the ecological farming.
