title: Sustainability evaluation of Sicily's lemon and orange production: an energy, economic and environmental analysis.
abstract: The island of Sicily has a long standing tradition in citrus growing. We evaluated the sustainability of orange and lemon orchards, under organic and conventional farming, using an energy, environmental and economic analysis of the whole production cycle by using a life cycle assessment approach. These orchard systems differ only in terms of a few of the inputs used and the duration of the various agricultural operations. The quantity of energy consumption in the production cycle was calculated by multiplying the quantity of inputs used by the energy conversion factors drawn from the literature. The production costs were calculated considering all internal costs, including equipment, materials, wages, and costs of working capital. The performance of the two systems (organic and conventional), was compared over a period of fifty years. The results, based on unit surface area (ha) production, prove the stronger sustainability of the organic over the conventional system, both in terms of energy consumption and environmental impact, especially for lemons. The sustainability of organic systems is mainly due to the use of environmentally friendly crop inputs (fertilizers, not use of synthetic products, etc.). In terms of production costs, the conventional management systems were more expensive, and both systems were heavily influenced by wages. In terms of kg of final product, the organic production system showed better environmental and energy performances.
authors.affiliation: Università degli Studi della Basilicata, Via Nazario Sauro, 85, 85100 Potenza, Italy.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pergola
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: D'Amico
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Celano
authors.forename: A M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Palese
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Scuderi
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Di Vita
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pappalardo
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Inglese
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture / Q000191:economics* / Q000379:methods*; D002957:Citrus; D032084:Citrus sinensis; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D004736:Energy-Generating Resources; D004777:Environment; D058871:Organic Agriculture; D012802:Sicily
keywords: AA; AD; Abiotic Depletion; Air Acidification; CL; CO; Citrus production; Conventional Lemon; Conventional Orange; EA; EU; Energy Analysis; Energy efficiency; Eutrophication; GWP; Global Warming Potential; LCA; Life Cycle Assessment; Life cycle assessment; OL; OLD; OO; Organic Lemon; Organic Orange; Ozone Layer Depletion; PO; Photochemical Oxidation; Production costs analysis