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Título
Food-energy-water nexus of different cacao production systems from a LCA approach
Autor
Facultad/Centro
Área de conocimiento
Título de la revista
Journal of Cleaner Production
Cita Bibliográfica
Armengot, L., Beltrán, M. J., Schneider, M., Simón, X., y Pérez-Neira, D. (2021). Food-energy-water nexus of different cacao production systems from a LCA approach. Journal of Cleaner Production, 304. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JCLEPRO.2021.126941
Editorial
Elsevier
Fecha
2021
ISSN
0959-6526
Resumen
[EN] life cycle assessment (LCA), of four young cacao production systems: two full-sun monocultures and two
agroforestry systems under conventional and organic management. Land footprint (LF) for food production,
non-renewable cumulative energy demand (NR CED) for energy, total water footprint (TWF) for
water, and three efficiency indicators for the FEWn were all analysed. In addition, ten LCA impact categories
were evaluated in relation to two functional units (kilograms of cacao output and kilograms of
total crop output, i.e., cacao þ other crops). The integrated analysis of the FEWn and the LCA framework
reveals how agroforestry systems and organic management report better environmental performances
for almost all indicators and impact categories considered, except for the TWF. However, given that the
systems analysed have no irrigation, between 96.3% and 99.8% of the TWF corresponds to green water,
i.e., soil moisture from precipitation. Green water has lower environmental impacts and opportunity
costs than the water used to manufacture inputs (WFinput). Accordingly, when the efficiency of the nexus
is measured in relation to the WFinput, organically managed systems produce more food/energy per unit
of water used. Our results show how production diversification and organic and cultural management
practices can improve energy efficiency and reduce the use of water associated with the inputs and,
consequently, improve the nexus, as well as the rest of the environmental impacts analysed. The design
of agricultural policies focused on sustainability should strongly favour the establishment of agroforestry
systems, particularly those that are organically managed.
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