Background to conference
Australian farms supply 93 percent of the nation's food needs while a further 60 percent of produce is sold offshore generating substantial export revenue for the country. In the financial year ending 2013, the Australian agricultural sector generated total exports of A$38 billion, which represents 13 percent of Australia’s A$300 billion in total goods and services export earnings. As an export oriented industry, Australian agriculture is impacted by movements in global markets.

Globally, concern about environmental impacts of the agriculture sector had increase dramatically over the past 10 years. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and related approaches are being widely applied around the world both for improving performance and setting benchmarks for entry to specific markets.

While Australia is active in the development and application of LCA for agriculture, there are numerous developments occurring across Europe, Asia and the US that will shape the competitive environment for sustainable commodities for the future. This inaugural conference dedicated to life cycle approaches in Australian food and agriculture industry will provide the opportunity for industry to understand these developments and help shape the environmental future of the industry.

Aims for the conference
• Present applications of the LCA methodology to agriculture and food product systems,
• Increase the uptake of LCA and related tools in food and agricultural products,
• Support information sharing and exchange of experience regarding environmental decision-making in the food and agriculture supply chain including farming, processing, packaging and storage,
• Examine approaches to increase the environmental competitiveness and efficiency of the Australian agriculture and food sector,
• Show the recent developments in the methodology, approaches, databases and tools relevant to LCA, and
• Building consensus around LCA methods relating to agriculture and food.

Topics
• Developments and applications of LCA methods specific to agriculture
• Water footprints examples and developments
• Examination of land use and land use change in LCA and agriculture
• Databases development, quality, maintenance and interoperability
• Farm emission quantification - soil carbon, nitrous oxide CO2 respiration, N leaching
• Food processing, packaging and waste prevention
• Benchmarking and case studies of agriculture and food products
• Environmental and GHG impact mitigation approaches
• Nutrition and environmental impact
• Biofuels and biomaterials LCA
• Labelling and certification systems for agriculture
• Standardising system LCA in Agriculture and Food