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Environmental loading of Italian semi-intensive snail farming system evaluated by means of life cycle assessment

TitleEnvironmental loading of Italian semi-intensive snail farming system evaluated by means of life cycle assessment
Publication TypeArticolo su Rivista peer-reviewed
Year of Publication2016
AuthorsZucaro, Amalia, Forte A., De Vico G., and Fierro A.
JournalJournal of Cleaner Production
Volume125
Pagination56-67
ISSN09596526
KeywordsAnimals, Enclosures, Environmental impact, Environmental loadings, Environmental loads, environmental management, Environmental performance, Eutrophication, Feeding, Heliciculture, life cycle, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Meats, Molluscs, Ozone, ozone depletion, Ozone layer, Production chain, snail
Abstract

In the recent years, heliciculture has rapidly developed in Italy both in terms of number of companies (about 8000) and average extension of snail farms (5000-10,000 m2). Studies aimed to evaluate the whole environmental performance of heliciculture are still not available in literature. This paper presents a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) performed for Helix aspersa maxima snail production in the South of Italy. The system boundary (cradle to farm gate) of the production chain considered the following stages: indoor breeding, outdoor fattening, cleaning out and packaging. The outdoor fattening displayed the largest part of total burdens (about 90%) for all impact categories due to the relevant contribution of its processes (enclosures set-up, fodder cultivation, supplementary feeding and irrigation). The process that highly affected all impact categories was the supplementary feeding used in fattening pens which reached the highest value for Terrestrial acidification (84%) and the lowest one for Ozone depletion (41%). Nevertheless, the impact of enclosures set-up and fodder cultivation appeared marked in particular for Ozone depletion (46%) and Marine Eutrophication (30%), respectively. Results showed the key factors (supplementary feeding, HDPE mesh) to be considered and discussed to proper design a semi-intensive snail management in order to enhance benefits and constrain limitations. Moreover, the snail farming highlighted a lower environmental load, for almost all impact categories, compared to literature data on conventional meat (beef, pig and chicken). © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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URLhttps://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84963677300&doi=10.1016%2fj.jclepro.2016.03.045&partnerID=40&md5=f022fb5ea30eb0423923b5730f75548f
DOI10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.03.045
Citation KeyZucaro201656