Sustainability of agricultural production in Taiwan: LCA

社會可持續性已成為全球討論之議題，作為氣候變化之回應，特別是農業生產之可持續性，因為它仍然是社會基本需求之基本支柱。吾人透由測量運輸、包裝、加工、分銷與保存等過程反映真實可持續性。為此，本研究使用LCA(生命週期評估)作為系統評估整個生產週期之適當工具。本文考察2015年台灣農業生產置重點於糧食生產可持續性之三個方向：環境、經濟與社會方面，以及其影響，並確認渠等在週期內之相對關係。因此，利用LCA描繪台灣農業生產系統之整體情況，有助於瞭解整體農業情況。環境層面講述能源消耗、使用效率，及土壤、水汙染。經濟層面包含生產週期中之自給自足分析與價格分析。社會層面揭露食品安全問題，特別是暴露於農藥之健康風險。最後，將結果與實際意義綜合表現，並提出許多可後續繼續研究之議題。Sustainability of society became a globally discussed issue as a response to climate change, especially, the sustainability of agricultural production as it remains as a fundamental pillar of the society for fulfilling basic needs. It is time to move forward real sustainability through measuring the whole process between production and consumption embracing transportation, packaging, processing, distribution, and preservation among others. For this purpose, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is used in this research as an appropriate tool for the systematic evaluation of the whole cycle of production. This paper examines agricultural production in Taiwan in 2015 focusing on sustainability of food production in three dimensions: environmental, economic, and social aspects, as well as its impacts and identifying the relative importance of each part in the cycle. Therefore, with drawing the whole picture of Taiwanese agricultural production system using LCA, it helps to understand circumstances behind the whole agriculture sector. The part concerning environmental dimension talks about energy consumption and efficiency of its usage; as well as, contamination of soil and water. Economic dimension consists of self-sufficiency analysis and price analysis of some components in the life cycle of production. Finally, the social dimension reveals certain problems in food safety, particularly, health risks of exposure to pesticides. And finally, a summary of results and practical implication of this research are presented. This research highlights many issues which could be further investigated