Evaluating the sustainability and productivity of conventional, organic, and regenerative agriculture in maize-soybean rotations: a modelling LCA study

The escalating global demand for food, coupled with agriculture's significant environmental burdens, presents a fundamental challenge: feeding a growing population without compromising planetary health. Quantifying the comparative environmental performance of various food production systems is essential to guiding this transition, particularly across staple crops. This article addresses this by presenting a comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of maize and soybean cultivation under Conventional, Organic, and Regenerative Agriculture (respectively CA, OA and RA), based on a rigorously modelled crop rotation derived from literature-based data. The LCA utilized the ReCiPe 2016 (H) method at both the Midpoint (problem-oriented) and disaggregated Endpoint (damage-oriented) levels, as well as the IPCC 2013 GWP 100a methodology. RA consistently demonstrated the lowest average total environmental impact per hectare across all indicators, affirming its potential for reduced local burden. For example, RA's total damage score per hectare (136.18 Pt) for maize was significantly lower than both CA (149.86 Pt) and OA (167.87 Pt). However, when impacts were normalized per metric tonne of product, this advantage narrowed or reversed due to yield differences. For instance, while RA's Global-Warming Potential (GWP) per tonne for maize (285.66 kg CO₂eq) still outperformed CA (328.93 kg CO₂eq), CA achieved the minimum impact in other key efficiency-driven categories, such as Endpoint Total Damage (15.77 Pt) and Land Use (146.66 m²a crop eq). Ultimately, these findings demonstrate no singular 'optimal' system, but rather a critical trade-off between mitigating local environmental burden (per-hectare) and maximizing production efficiency (per-tonne).