ESRIG-EES colloquium: Meis Uijttewaal, MSc EES student

Title: The relationship between food products in a closed agricultural production system

By: Meis Uijttewaal, MSc EES student

Summary:
The agricultural production sector is responsible for a large share of the emission of greenhouse gases. One way of reducing these emissions is changing our consumption pattern. Currently, LCA’s are used to determine which diets have the lowest emissions. However, these LCA’s do not take into account the by-products from the food production, examples of which are straw and beet pulp. For this research project I have made a model of a closed agricultural food production system, based on the agricultural system of the Netherlands. Such a closed system implies that all the by-products must remain within the system. For example, straw from the wheat production must be fed to the livestock and manure from the livestock must be used as crop fertilizer. Firstly, I used this model to determine what the relations between the different food products are in a closed system. For example, if we want to consume bread, what other food products will be produced as well. Secondly, I used the model to determine how these relations between the food products influence which diet composition has the lowest emission of greenhouse gases.