Intensive agricultural production contributes significantly to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, accounting for between 10 and 12% of global anthropogenic emissions, at a time when the agricultural sector is facing increasing pressure to adapt to ever-stricter environmental regulations. This study develops and applies a multi-objective Goal Programming model to identify the optimal mix of crops and management practices that simultaneously minimize the carbon footprint and maximize productivity, at the level of a 300-hectare (ha) model agricultural system in Romania. The life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology, in accordance with ISO 14040/14044 standards and Ecoinvent 3.8 emission factors, was applied to nine crops distributed across three soil types, within four management scenarios, over an annual planning horizon. The unit of measurement used is a ton of CO2 equivalent per agricultural system. The results show that the optimized configuration achieves near-zero total carbon emissions (0.33 t CO2eq for the entire farm), reduces synthetic nitrogen inputs to 35.7% of the limit set by the EU Nitrates Directive, and generates water savings of 48%. However, these environmental gains entail a 52.9% production trade-off relative to the maximum target of 3000 tons, highlighting a Pareto-optimal structural conflict between climate and food security objectives. The sensitivity analysis identifies the nitrogen emission factor and crop yield as the most influential parameters. The results confirm the technical feasibility of the European Green Deal targets through systematic mathematical optimization, while also demonstrating that achieving economic parity requires policy support of 110–165 EUR/ha/year.
Pătărlăgeanu et al. (Sat,) studied this question.