Shahin Hassani; Mahmoud Ramroudi; Ebrahim Ahmadi
Abstract
The characteristics of forage corn make it an important crop for the livestock industry. Due to the thriving animal husbandry in western Iran and the foothills of the Zagros, the production of forage corn is crucial. However, such crop production has the potential to affect environmental phenomena such ...
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The characteristics of forage corn make it an important crop for the livestock industry. Due to the thriving animal husbandry in western Iran and the foothills of the Zagros, the production of forage corn is crucial. However, such crop production has the potential to affect environmental phenomena such as global warming, ozone depletion, eutrophication, acidification potential, and human toxicity potential. In this study, the life cycle assessment methodology was used to examine the production of contaminants due to forage corn cultivation. Consequently, various environmental impacts and production processes have been evaluated. The potential environmental impacts are calculated according to the production unit equivalents considered by the global databases. 118.46 CO2 equivalent units of greenhouse gas emissions result from the production of one tonne of forage corn. This quantity was calculated to be one tonne of forage corn equal to 0.0000147 units per kilogramme of CEC11 production in order to account for ozone depletion. The estimated eutrophication potential of producing one tonne of forage corn was 0.4618 units, or kilogrammes of PO4 production. Increases in the efficiency of corn production may reduce the production of contaminants and the rate of environmental degradation.
