Avaliação do ciclo de vida da farinha de mandioca amarela: Santarém/PA e Paranavaí/PR

Abstract

Cassava flour is the main product derived from cassava in Brazil. Cassava is a food security product, usually produced in small, low-tech "flour houses" commonly found in the North and Northeast regions of Brazil. However, in the South, Southeast and Midwest, the production of flour is in the process of industrialization. In the processes of production of cassava flour environmental impacts occur which are distributed along the productive chain, and these impacts need to be described and quantified using a holistic approach. In this sense, the objective of this research was to identify and compare the environmental impacts and energy costs in the yellow cassava flour production chain, in traditional production systems (by family farmers in Santarém/PA) and in industrial production (in Paranavaí/PR). Using the Life Cycle Assessment methodology, according to the standards ISO 14040 (2009) and ABNT NBR ISO 14044 (2014), the following environmental impacts were categorized and calculated: Acidification, Global Warming, Land Use and Cumulative Total Energy Demand (CED). For this purpose, the CML 2001 method, updated as IPCC 2007 and CED, was used with the aid of SimaPro 8.2 software and the Ecoinvent 3.3 database. The results showed that in the industrial system 80.33% and 86.70% of the equivalent emissions refer to the Acidification potential and the Global Warming Potential, respectively, due to the treatment of the volume of liquid effluents in the biodigester. Also, the equivalent CED had as its main source of contribution the treatment of liquid effluents in the biodigester with 64.60%. The environmental impacts related to land use predominated in the traditional system of yellow flour production, which required 121.77m2 a (74.07%) to meet the functional unit, while in the industrial system of yellow flour production the value obtained was 742.79m2a (25.93%), which was more efficient due to the smaller amount of agricultural area needed to attend the functional unit. The extrapolation of the result obtained regarding land use in the industrial system for the production of flour in the Northern Region and in the State of Pará presented results that, if adopted, will reduce areas occupied with the cultivation of cassava, liberating arable lands to be occupied with other cultures, minimizing the need to open new areas of native forest.