Redefining the agrifood sector in Switzerland: the case of organic agriculture
The future of the planet begins in our plates, as food consumption is responsible for tremendous impacts on
the environment, human health and more. Implementing farm to fork solutions that consider the entire food
value chain is necessary to rethink the food and agriculture system. This study analyzes how generalizing
organic agriculture can satisfy Switzerland’s needs while refedining the agrifood system to create positive
environmental impacts and meet tomorrow’s challenges.
First, this paper provides a commodity-based modelling of the production within the Swiss agrifood system
in 2050, derived in four scenarios, to compare the environmental impacts of organic and business-as-usual
production as well as the EAT-Lancet diet and the Swiss Food Pyramid diet. Then, an LCA-based approach
allows us to assess the environmental impacts on nine impacts categories relevant to the agrifood sector:
’climate change’, ’acidification’, ’ecotoxicity, freshwater’, ’eutrophication, freshwater’, ’eutrophication, marine’,’
eutrophication, terrestrial’, ’resource use, fossils’, ’water use’ and ’land use’.
The results show lower impacts than the reference year 2018 for all impact categories. Shifting towards
organic agriculture would create less impacts for ’climate change’, ’ecotoxicity, freshwater’, ’water use’, and
’resource use, fossils’ but higher impacts for the other categories. The EAT-Lancet diet, usually considered
as the reference for sustainable diets, is less impactful on ’climate change’ and ’ecotoxicity, freshwater’ than
the Swiss Food Pyramid diet, but creates more externalities on ’eutrophication, freshwater’, ’eutrophication,
terrestrial’, ’water use’ and ’resource use, fossils’. From a land use perspective, all scenarios are feasible,
although the combination of organic agriculture and the Swiss Food Pyramid diet would require conserving
the arable land at its 2018 level. As most scenarios free-up arable land, possible alternative uses as well as
their potential to comply with Switzerland’s sustainability objectives are discussed.
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