Life-cycle assessment of the soybean-sunflower production system in the Brazilian Cerrado

Abstract

Sunflower is an important crop in Parecis region of the Brazilian Cerrado. In 2014, the region produced 232.700 tons of sunflower grains, 45% ofthe national production. Sunflower production comes mostly from a system that has soybean as the main crop. The association of soybean and sunflower can reduce environmental impacts due to shared use of resources. This study performed a "cradle to gate" Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the soybean-sunflower production system used in Parecis region and compared its environmental profile to that of the monoculture of these two crops. We evaluated the impacts related to the use of soil (land use change emissions and liming) for each crop according to three allocation criteria: time of soil occupation, yield and gross margin. Although performance on "Climate Change" and some other impact categories had varied according to the allocation criteria used, the soybean-sunflower rotation crop system presented lower environmental impacts on every category when compared to soybean and sunflower monocultures with the same yield. Important impact reductionswere observed on "Climate change" (43%), "Terrestrial acidification" (26%) and "Particulate matter formation" (20%) categories.

Comparative Farm-Gate Life Cycle Assessment of Oilseed Feedstocks in the Northern Great Plains

“…Many studies have assumed that for soybeans no N and minimal P were applied to fields (Ng et al 2013). If no N and minimal P (~ 3 kg/ha) fertilizers were applied and if 'test' yields of over 3000 kg/ha (~ 45 bushels per acre) could be consistently achieved across the NGP, then the freshwater eutrophication impact would be similar to those reported in Brazil and in the range of 0.14 g P eq per kg soybean (Matsuura et al 2016). However, according to NASS statistics this not the reality within the NGP (NASS 2017) because N fertilizer is used to stimulate soybean growth prior to mycorrhizal activity and P is necessary to sustain mycorrhizal activities and soybean plant growth (Bethlenfalvay et al 1983).…”

Management intensification maintains wood production over multiple harvests in tropical Eucalyptus plantations

“…, Matsuura et al. ). Fertilization beyond current application rates does not typically increase production following canopy closure (Stape et al.…”

Environmental and Energy Performance of Ethanol Production from the Integration of Sugarcane, Corn, and Grain Sorghum in a Multipurpose Plant

“…For the cases involving starch ethanol, the allocation procedures have also been applied at the agricultural stage to distribute the environmental loads between the first and second crops in the rotation system. Thus, the emissions generated by the direct Land Use Change (dLUC) and soil acidity correction were equally divided, considering the time of land occupation for each crop during the agricultural year [44]. …”