University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU) - Research portal
Gewählte Master / Diploma Thesis:
Katharina Willam
(2020):
Klimaauswirkungen von Lebensmittelabfällen in der österreichischen Landwirtschaft.
Master / Diploma Thesis - Institut für Abfallwirtschaft (ABF-BOKU),
BOKU-Universität für Bodenkultur,
pp 80.
UB BOKU
obvsg
- Abstract:
- Food that is not eaten is a loss of resources and a product of unnecessary greenhouse gases, nevertheless, 20% of food goes to waste in Austrian farms. The first part of this master thesis is an analysis of reason and emergence for food waste in agriculture. The second part is a modeling of the climate impact of this food waste in Austrian agriculture, with the application of the lifecycle assessment method. Therefore, five very different fruit and vegetable have been used as reference food for the analysis, these are pumpkin (organic), carrot (organic), iceberg lettuce (conventionally produced), apple (organic) and strawberry (conventionally produced). Reasons for food waste in agriculture are from various origins, on one hand, it’s about not edible food, on the other side it`s about harvest surpluses, but above all the high-quality standards of the market are the main reason for these losses. For example, bulky fruit and vegetable are not welcomed in food retailing. Based on the Survey three relevant scenarios for food loss in agriculture can be identified: 4. Fruit and vegetable which cannot be marketed are worked as crop residues into the field. 5. Food gets composted and is afterward used as compost fertilizer. 6. Not marketed food or. food waste gets donated to social institutions The global warming potentials of these scenarios are modeled and are getting compared with each other. It is shown, that with food which demonstrates a high global warming potential in cultivation, the scenario about donation implies the highest benefit and the scenario about crop residues implies the second-highest benefit. With food that shows no big relevance to the climate in cultivation, the incorporated crop residues have the lowest global warming potential, followed by the donation of the food. Within all analyzed fruit and vegetable, the scenario about composting has the lowest benefit of all three scenarios, referred to as the global warming potential. Furthermore, it is modeled until which distance a donation implies a benefit. The result is: The higher the warming potential of the cultivation, the higher can be the transport distance of the donation with still holding a benefit.
- Beurteilende(r): Salhofer Stefan Petrus
- 1.Mitwirkender: Obersteiner Gudrun