Browsing by Subject "YSK"

The aim of this study is to observe what kind of environmental impacts are caused by agriculture and what kind of factors causes them. The study is part of ENREFOOD – project, which views the environmental responsibility of food chain. The data was collected from scientific literature and a group interview, where participants were representing experts from different areas of primary production. The experts were shown a draft of the main environmental impacts and their causes basing on life cycle assessment (LCA) impact classes. The chosen main environmental impacts were focusing on climate change, acidification, eutrophication, biodiversity, toxicity and eco-toxicity and natural resources. The experts were supposed to modify this draft in order to achieve their collective perspective. The results were presented as comparing the draft based on scientific literature and perspectives obtained from the experts. Moreover, the terms used when discussing about the causes of the environmental impacts were analysed applying environmental protection process (EPP) framework, which can be used to illustrate how an environmental change is formed. The perspective of experts did not differ much from the scientific literature based on the draft. The names of the main environmental impact classes were slightly modified and one new class was formed. The new class was called landscape change and recreational factors. The terms relating to the causes used by experts were representing different components in the EPP framework. A Part of the terms were more abstract background factors whereas some related direct on farm level action and its emissions. The amount of the environmental impacts of primary production is huge. By more precisely scoping of the chosen environmental themes can result more manageable overall view. For example, as a good starting point the protection areas applied in the end point modelling of the LCA can be recommended. These areas of protection can be, e.g., human health, biodiversity, natural resources and natural environments. Focusing on these areas of protection separately can reduce the causality problem, which makes environmental impact observation challenging.