Economic and Environmental Assessment of Agro-Energy Districts in Northern Greece: a Life Cycle Assessment Approach

One of the major goals for farmers is to fulfill the subsidiary requirements of the common agricultural policy in order to ensure their payments. At the same time, policies integrating agri-environmental and climate change mitigation reforms seem to keep farmers skeptical about structural changes in farm management. The formulation of agro-energy districts is the key to merge economic and environmental motives for farmers in the European Union. Our main goal is the assessment of sustainability based on environmental and economic data and the identification of potential energy generation from crop residues for thirteen major crops in Northern Greece. Furthermore, we follow a life cycle assessment and a life cycle costing approach to investigate the environmental and economic implications of conventional agricultural practices in the area under two scenarios. The first scenario depicts the common practice of burning residues in the side of the fields, while the second scenario integrates the idea of residues exploitation for energy generation. Agricultural residues from maize, peach trees, and sunflower could be the cornerstone of agro-energy districts based on the savings of emissions under the two relevant scenarios. Finally, tree crops (cherry, olive, and peach) are the most profitable crops as expected, while seven annual crops are heavily dependent on subsidiary help.