Study of environmental effects of forage maize production using life cycle assessment

Iran is one of the countries with the highest production of greenhouse gases in the world, which according to estimates is a significant part of these effects are related to agricultural activities. There are various methods for assessing the environmental impact of agricultural activities. Life cycle assessment is one of the methods for assessing the effects of sustainability that has been developed based on the product production process. Existing methods for assessing the effects of life cycle and determining the effects of agricultural activities are determined by classifying and modeling the evaluation and possible changes in soil quality indicators as a result of agricultural activities in the field. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the environmental effects of the forage maize production system using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method in order to better manage and control these effects.

The study area is an educational farm of the University of Tehran with an area of 260 hectares. The required information was collected through interviews with field experts. The amount of inputs used and the emission of pollutants in several groups of effects including global warming, eutrophication, acidification, surface water poisoning and ozone depletion, classification per functional unit (one ton of forage corn) are determined and their effect on the exchange life cycle. Life cycle evaluation calculations were performed by Sima Pro software.

The results showed that (1): The most environmental degradation due to forage maize production is related to surface water pollution with a value of 1.94×10-13 kg, 1,4-DBeq that chemical fertilizers and irrigation have the most effect on this pollution 1.33×10-13 and 4.96×10-14, kg 1,4-DBeq, respectively: (2): The value of the environmental index is 2.19×10-13 points or 0.219 picopoint. It was calculated that the normalized values of the effect groups are due to the production of fodder corn, which is calculated by multiplying the total amount of contamination of each effect group by the normalization and weighting factors, specific to each effect group. The lower the value and the closer it is to zero, the less environmental impact of the product is less.

Using different methods of crop management such as the use of organic inputs, rotation, nitrogen-fixing plants, and tillage, at least based on the using of low input principles to reduce these environmental effects and also by selecting appropriate methods of irrigation yield and optimal crop yield management environmental degradation reduced these operations. The solution that can be proposed and implemented to reduce the effects of this operation is to use different methods of crop management such as the use of organic inputs, rotation, nitrogen-fixing plants, and tillage at least, based on the use of minimizing principles to reduce these environmental effects. By selecting appropriate methods for irrigation and optimal management of water consumption while increasing crop yield, the environmentally destructive effects of this operation were reduced.