Legume-modified rotations derive maximum benefit when crops go direct to human nutrition. Legume-modified rotations deliver nutrition at lower environmental cost Legume-modified rotations were compared with conventional baseline rotations Two functional units were applied to rotation outputs: human and animal nutrition potential Life Cycle Assessment was undertaken for 10 cropping sequences across 16 impact categories
Nonetheless, results point to an important role for increased legume cultivation in Europe to contribute to the farm and diet sustainability goals of the European Union's Farm to Fork strategy. Our results show that choice of functional unit has an important influence on the apparent efficiency of different crop rotations, and highlight a need for more research to develop functional units representing multiple nutritional attributes of crops for livestock feed. However, legume-modified rotations delivered less metabolisable energy for livestock per hectare-year in two out of the three zones, and at intermediate environmental cost for one zone. In terms of livestock nutrition, legume-modified rotations also delivered more digestible protein at lower environmental cost compared with conventional rotations. In Scotland, the introduction of a legume crop into the typical rotation reduced external nitrogen requirements by almost half to achieve the same human nutrition potential. The introduction of grain legumes into conventional cereal and oilseed rotations delivered human nutrition at lower environmental cost for most of the 16 impact categories studied. We applied life cycle assessment to compare the environmental efficiency of ten rotations across three European climatic zones in terms of delivery of human and livestock nutrition. Few previous studies have accounted for interactions among crops, or the aggregate nutritional output of rotations, to benchmark the efficiency of modified cropping sequences. Introducing legumes to crop rotations could contribute toward healthy and sustainable diet transitions, but the current evidence base is fragmented across studies that evaluate specific aspects of sustainability and nutrition in isolation. 5School of Engineering, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland.4Department of Botany, School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.3Scotland's Rural College, West Mains Road, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.2Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research, Müncheberg, Germany.1School of Natural Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor, United Kingdom.Rees 3, Sophie Saget 4, Michael Williams 4 and David Styles 1,5 * Costa 1 *, Moritz Reckling 2, Dave Chadwick 1, Robert M.
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