Promoting Sustainable Agriculture through the Application of Biostimulants and Organic Amendments: A Life Cycle and Environmental Cost Analysis in Denmark and Ukraine

This study compares the environmental impacts and the environmental prices related to applying composts, biofertilizers, and biostimulants, produced in Denmark, Sweden, and Ukraine, across different cropping systems, based on field trials in Denmark and Ukraine. The evaluation is conducted utilizing life cycle assessment and Eco-cost methodology. The functional unit is linked to the production of 1 kg of crops, and the system boundaries span from cradle to grave. In Denmark, fish hydrolysate shows the lowest environmental impacts across all categories compared to other products. In the case of climate change, it emits 0.029 kg of CO2 per kg in pea sole and 0.017 kg of CO2 in the pea−barley intercropping system. Moreover, fish hydrolysate presents lower impacts than the control in climate change, eutrophication, land use, water consumption, and resource use in pea−barley intercrop and pea sole. In Ukraine, biochar provides benefits in acidification, land use, water consumption, and fossil resource depletion compared to the control and other biofertilizers. Furthermore, intercropping generally shows lower impacts and costs than monocrops. The environmental costs amount to €0.48 per kg of intercrop in Denmark and €0.04 per kg in Ukraine. For pea sole, the costs increase to €1.16 per kg in Denmark and €0.06 per kg in Ukraine. These findings emphasize the importance of aligning organic amendments and biostimulants with suitable cropping systems to enhance agricultural sustainability.