How environmentally sustainable are farms? An analysis in Southern Italy through the Life Cycle Assessment methodology

Promoting a sustainable economy through the digital and ecological transition of companies is one of the challenges of our century. By improving processes along the agri-food supply chains and enhancing the data generated in every single area of the value chain, digital promises to reduce the ecological footprint of the agricultural sector. Thus, the aim of the research was to estimate the environmental impacts and the social cost of pollution of different agricultural systems to identify the weak point in the cultivation phase and propose more sustainable lines of intervention and alternatives in a green transition perspective. The study was carried out in Southern Italy and 46 cropping systems were analyzed and compared using the Life Cycle Methodology (LCA). Results showed that to date no farmers interviewed has adopted digital technologies. The comparison between cultivation systems highlighted the greater sustainability of those organic. Among the different systems, some by their nature cOULD be considered more sustainable than others (as olive and hazelnut systems) because linked to a cultivation characterized by a low use of resources and inputs. On the contrary, others presented greater impacts due to the use of considerable quantities of materials, above all support and covering structures (as in table grapes systems) or plastic containers (as in strawberry systems). In the systems that didn't use many materials, the disaggregation of the impacts by agricultural operations showed that the greatest impacts were linked to the emissions of the fuels, especially during the harvesting phase, and to fertilization and disease control. Hence the need to spread the use of the LCA methodology to estimate impacts in agriculture, increase organic cultivation and intervene with modern digital and precision agriculture technologies to consume fewer resources, reduce waste, and improve the quality of life.