Environmental Impact Alternatives for Soil Tillage and Sowing: Farmer or Contractor?

In Italy, contractors provide agricultural farms with over 40% of the mechanization needs. Compared to farmers, they can more promptly amortize their investment and help reduce the environmental impact of mechanization due to the use of better performing machinery. The goal of this study is to evaluate whether the seedbed preparation and sowing operations carried out by contractors have a lower environmental impact than those performed by farmers. Data about 20 agro-mechanical contractor companies located in Northern Italy were collected investigating technical, operating and usage machines characteristics. Regarding farmers, a typical farm (50 ha, double cropping and fleet of 4 tractors) was considered as reference. Operation sequences carried out by contractors and farmers were identified and compared through Life Cycle Assessment to evaluate their potential environmental impact. The impact of seedbed preparation and sowing resulted generally lower when carried out by contractors. Compared to farmers, Climate Change was reduced by 24.5% for conventional tillage and 9.1% for minimum tillage. The greatest reductions in environmental impact are shown for Particulate Matter production and for acidification, mostly due to the emission reduction devices available on the modern tractors mostly used by contractors.