Environmental impact and resource use efficiency of selected food production chains in Norway - a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach

This project will focus on environmental impacts and resource use efficiencies related to important food productions in Norwegian agriculture, that is, bread (wheat), milk (cow) and selected bovine meat (beef/cow) products. Typical production performances within specified regions will be described and compared. Next, the variation in production managements within the regions will be analyzed according to defined production intensities. When hot spots for environmental concerns are identified, and possible scenarios for improvements considered, further differentiation of the production systems (e.g. management practices etc.) will be performed iteratively. To address the issues raised above the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) framework will be applied. LCA is the prevailing methodology for assessment of environmental impacts from production systems. A complete LCA requires the assessment of raw material production, manufacture, distribution, use and disposal including all intervening transportation steps nece ssary or caused by the product's existence. Among the environmental categories to be included in the LCA's are global warming (greenhouse gas mitigation), acidification, eutrophication, toxicological pollutants, land use as well as depletion of minerals and fossil fuels. Separate inventory reports will be produced for the agricultural production managements (farm gate), and for the production chains from farm gate to the store. These inventory reports will be linked for completing the 'cradle-to-store' L CA's. With the combination of high quality inventory data and advanced methods for contribution analysis the project aims to produce results of high quality and relevance. And most important, increased understanding of the life cycle of any product can be used to optimize its environmental performance and/or to optimize the environmental performance of a company.