IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jresou/v2y2013i4p628-650d31161.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Conventional, Organic and Polycultural Farming Practices: Material Intensity of Italian Crops and Foodstuffs

Author

Listed:
  • Lucia Mancini

    (Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, Università Politecnica delle Marche, via Brecce Bianche, Ancona 60131, Italy)

Abstract

Food system sustainability is a major issue of concern for policy makers. Feeding an increasing world population without compromising the endowment of natural resources or worsening the environmental crisis is, indeed, a major challenge. The need to boost sustainable and productive farming systems and enhance resource efficiency has been acknowledged by European Union policy in its 2020 Strategy. This study assesses the impact of some Italian foodstuffs and agricultural products in terms of material requirement, using the Material Input Per Service unit (MIPS) indicator. The conventional, organic and post-organic agricultural practice called Ma-Pi polyculture is investigated. Results show that, in spite of higher yields obtained by conventional agriculture, material efficiency of organic crops and foodstuffs is generally higher. Moreover, a drastic enhancement of material efficiency is achievable using agronomic practices that minimize the employment of external inputs. As a tool for evaluating the environmental sustainability of agricultural products, MIPS allows focusing on a priority policy area, i.e. , resource efficiency, which could be easily employed for driving agricultural systems towards a sustainable intensification. Data quality and availability of Material Input (MI) factors remains, however, a constraining issue for the applicability of the indicator.

Suggested Citation

  • Lucia Mancini, 2013. "Conventional, Organic and Polycultural Farming Practices: Material Intensity of Italian Crops and Foodstuffs," Resources, MDPI, vol. 2(4), pages 1-23, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jresou:v:2:y:2013:i:4:p:628-650:d:31161
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/2/4/628/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/2/4/628/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Assumpcio Anton & Juan I. Montero & Pere Munoz & Francesc Castells, 2005. "LCA and tomato production in Mediterranean greenhouses," International Journal of Agricultural Resources, Governance and Ecology, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 4(2), pages 102-112.
    2. Verena Seufert & Navin Ramankutty & Jonathan A. Foley, 2012. "Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture," Nature, Nature, vol. 485(7397), pages 229-232, May.
    3. Kinsey, Jean D., 2003. "Emerging Trends In The New Food Economy: Consumers, Firms And Science," Working Papers 14575, International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium.
    4. A. Hoekstra & A. Chapagain, 2007. "Water footprints of nations: Water use by people as a function of their consumption pattern," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 21(1), pages 35-48, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alon Tal, 2018. "Making Conventional Agriculture Environmentally Friendly: Moving beyond the Glorification of Organic Agriculture and the Demonization of Conventional Agriculture," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-17, April.
    2. Gössling, Stefan & Garrod, Brian & Aall, Carlo & Hille, John & Peeters, Paul, 2011. "Food management in tourism: Reducing tourism’s carbon ‘foodprint’," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 534-543.
    3. Cornelis Leeuwen & Jos Frijns & Annemarie Wezel & Frans Ven, 2012. "City Blueprints: 24 Indicators to Assess the Sustainability of the Urban Water Cycle," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(8), pages 2177-2197, June.
    4. Jie Zhao & Ji Chen & Damien Beillouin & Hans Lambers & Yadong Yang & Pete Smith & Zhaohai Zeng & Jørgen E. Olesen & Huadong Zang, 2022. "Global systematic review with meta-analysis reveals yield advantage of legume-based rotations and its drivers," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-9, December.
    5. Movedi, Ermes & Valiante, Daniele & Colosio, Alessandro & Corengia, Luca & Cossa, Stefano & Confalonieri, Roberto, 2022. "A new approach for modeling crop-weed interaction targeting management support in operational contexts: A case study on the rice weeds barnyardgrass and red rice," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 463(C).
    6. Wang, Linlin & Li, Qiang & Coulter, Jeffrey A. & Xie, Junhong & Luo, Zhuzhu & Zhang, Renzhi & Deng, Xiping & Li, Linglin, 2020. "Winter wheat yield and water use efficiency response to organic fertilization in northern China: A meta-analysis," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    7. Daniel P. Roberts & Autar K. Mattoo, 2018. "Sustainable Agriculture—Enhancing Environmental Benefits, Food Nutritional Quality and Building Crop Resilience to Abiotic and Biotic Stresses," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-24, January.
    8. Tsoutsos, Theocharis & Chatzakis, Michael & Sarantopoulos, Ioannis & Nikologiannis, Athanasios & Pasadakis, Nikos, 2013. "Effect of wastewater irrigation on biodiesel quality and productivity from castor and sunflower oil seeds," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 211-215.
    9. Ehsan Qasemipour & Ali Abbasi & Farhad Tarahomi, 2020. "Water-Saving Scenarios Based on Input–Output Analysis and Virtual Water Concept: A Case in Iran," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-16, January.
    10. Atanu Mukherjee & Emmanuel C. Omondi & Paul R. Hepperly & Rita Seidel & Wade P. Heller, 2020. "Impacts of Organic and Conventional Management on the Nutritional Level of Vegetables," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-25, October.
    11. Pedrero, Francisco & Grattan, S.R. & Ben-Gal, Alon & Vivaldi, Gaetano Alessandro, 2020. "Opportunities for expanding the use of wastewaters for irrigation of olives," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    12. Seck, Abdoulaye & Thiam, Djiby Racine, 2022. "Understanding consumer attitudes to and valuation of organic food in Sub-Saharan Africa: A double-bound contingent method applied in Dakar, Senegal," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 17(1), March.
    13. Schindele, Stephan & Trommsdorff, Maximilian & Schlaak, Albert & Obergfell, Tabea & Bopp, Georg & Reise, Christian & Braun, Christian & Weselek, Axel & Bauerle, Andrea & Högy, Petra & Goetzberger, Ado, 2020. "Implementation of agrophotovoltaics: Techno-economic analysis of the price-performance ratio and its policy implications," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    14. Kalaitzandonakes, Nicholas & Lusk, Jayson & Magnier, Alexandre, 2018. "The price of non-genetically modified (non-GM) food," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 38-50.
    15. Janet MacFall & Joanna Lelekacs & Todd LeVasseur & Steve Moore & Jennifer Walker, 2015. "Toward resilient food systems through increased agricultural diversity and local sourcing in the Carolinas," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 5(4), pages 608-622, December.
    16. Kaltenegger, Oliver & Löschel, Andreas & Pothen, Frank, 2017. "The effect of globalisation on energy footprints: Disentangling the links of global value chains," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(S1), pages 148-168.
    17. Nesar Ahmed & Shirley Thompson & Giovanni M. Turchini, 2020. "Organic aquaculture productivity, environmental sustainability, and food security: insights from organic agriculture," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 12(6), pages 1253-1267, December.
    18. SIngh Verma, Juhee & Sharma, Pritee, 2019. "Potential of Organic Farming to Mitigate Climate Change and Increase Small Farmers’ Welfare," MPRA Paper 99994, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Arjen Y. Hoekstra, 2017. "Water Footprint Assessment: Evolvement of a New Research Field," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 31(10), pages 3061-3081, August.
    20. Felizitas Winkhart & Thomas Mösl & Harald Schmid & Kurt-Jürgen Hülsbergen, 2022. "Effects of Organic Maize Cropping Systems on Nitrogen Balances and Nitrous Oxide Emissions," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-30, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jresou:v:2:y:2013:i:4:p:628-650:d:31161. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.