Inventory of Norwegian grain production: Data from three average- and three high yielding cereal farms located in the major grain producing areas of Norway
Abstract
Understanding the environmental impacts associated with our food production and consumption is a prerequisite for identifying pathways towards a sustainable future. In order to consider the overall environmental impacts of a certain food production system, it is recommended to include the whole production chain and quantify the various environmental impacts per unit produced. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is so far the most developed/well adapted product-oriented assessment method for this purpose. The goal of the present work was to obtain data that are needed in order to perform a LCA on Norwegian grain production, a so-called inventory.
The present inventory is part of the project “Environmental impact and resource use efficiency of selected food production chains in Norway – a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach”, which focuses on environmental impacts and resource use efficiencies related to important food production chains in Norwegian agriculture. The project is funded by the Norwegian Research Council (program “Bionær”).
The inventory contains information on the management of three average– and three high yielding, grain-producing farms with conventional management in Central, Central Southeast and Southeast Norway, and it describes the methodology used to calculate the environmental emissions occurring on the farms.