Mapping the effects of agroecological farming practices included in the CAP on soil quality and on biodiversity
This work aimed at paving the way for a better coverage of the effects of agroecological practices on soil quality and on biodiversity in the Environmental Footprint (EF) methods, the EU recommended life cycle assessment (LCA) based methods to quantify the environmental impacts of products and organisations. To this end, a list of agroecological practices was collected from key reference documents, and the impacts of each practice on the environment and on the crop production system were collected by performing a literature review. For those practices presenting direct effects on soil quality, an assessment was made of the possibility to include them in the life cycle inventory (LCI) phase of an EF study. An approach to include the practices that are currently not captured by the EF-LCI was proposed. Furthermore, an assessment was made to identify the direct and indirect effects of these practices on biodiversity. Almost all practices analysed resulted having positive impacts on biodiversity when looking at direct effects, but some resulted having a negative impact on biodiversity when including also indirect effects. This proves the complexity of better representing agroecological practices in the EF methods.
DE LAURENTIIS Valeria;
BOSCHIERO Martina;
SINKKO Taija;
SALA Serenella;
2025-10-30
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC141945
978-92-68-31651-1 (online),
1831-9424 (online),
EUR 40456,
OP KJ-01-25-473-EN-N (online),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC141945,
10.2760/6101047 (online),
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