Estimativa da pegada carbono associada ao ciclo de vida do azeite de oliva com o cultivo orgânico e convencional

Abstract

Organic agriculture has been standing out as a possible alternative to the invasive methods used by conventional agriculture, combining this management approach with olive growing practices, environmental benefits can be obtained in this process. In the state of Rio Grande do Sul, for about a decade the planting of olive trees has been widespread in regional agriculture for the production of olive oil, due to the edaphoclimatic conditions of some regions of the state. Taking into account this new culture that has focused on the state, this research seeks to evaluate the carbon footprint of the life cycle of olive oil cultivated in the organic and conventional system. For the development of this study the methodology was based on the Evaluation of the life cycle, having as base the methods of LCA to estimate the carbon footprint of the organic and conventional cultivation system of olive oil, from the surveys of the data of consumption of electric energy, fuels and the production of residues that were made by obtaining primary data through field visits and interviews with producers, already for secondary data the literature was found in researches. The boundaries of the system for the development of the study comprised from the cultivation of the olive tree to the extraction of olive oil. As results, it was possible to observe that the organic system in its totality emitted 1,798x1003kg CO2eq/1 liter of olive oil, 700 times more than the conventional system which has a value of 2,562x1000 kg CO2eq/1 liter of olive oil. It is concluded that the organic system was the biggest contributor to global warming due to the fact that sheep farming and manure management occur only in organic, however, composting shows to be a good alternative in mitigating emissions from sheep.