Climate-Smart Agriculture
Agriculture
Sustainability in agriculture improves when it can be measured. As expectations for transparency, resource efficiency, and responsible farming grow, the ability to quantify sustainable agriculture performance metrics at farm level has become essential.
For nearly 20 years, BASF has supported this effort with AgBalance® - a science based agricultural Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool that evaluates the environmental and economic performance of crop production systems across more than 16 internationally recognized impact categories.
Today, AgBalance® is applied across more than 30 crops worldwide, enabling farmers and value chain partners to quantify sustainability — all supported by clear performance indicators e.g. greenhouse gas emissions, and resource efficiency — while maintaining productivity.
Agriculture directly influences critical environmental factors such as soil health, water use, and greenhouse gas emissions. Understanding and managing these impacts requires more than estimates or simplified calculators – it requires robust, comparable, and transparent assessments. LCA provides this foundation by evaluating agricultural systems across the full farming cycle, making sustainability impacts visible, comparable, and actionable.
This approach supports BASF’s commitment to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions by 30% per ton of crop by 2030, by turning sustainability from an aspiration into a measurable and manageable outcome.
Built on decades of BASF LCA expertise and continuously tested under real farming conditions, AgBalance® measures sustainability across 16 internationally recognized impact categories, including climate change, water scarcity, resource use and biodiversity. It is used by BASF and its partners to assess, compare, and improve the sustainability performance of agricultural systems.
To make LCA truly usable, BASF has evolved AgBalance® into a digital, user-friendly app, combining scientific rigor with practical usability.
With AgBalance®, farmers and value-chain partners can measure sustainability performance and identify opportunities to reduce emissions, improve resource efficiency, and support more climate-smart agricultural practices by:
User-friendly interface: Run sustainability studies easily with guided workflows, tooltips, templates, and step-by-step tutorials—no deep LCA expertise required.
Collaboration: Share projects, review results, and work with your team in one place, with dedicated spaces for specific projects or partners.
Easy system connection: Connect AgBalance® with other digital tools to share and exchange data automatically without manual uploads.
Immediate results: Generate quick results for different crops and farming practices and gain clear insights into sustainability performance.
Automation: Save time with automatic data inputs, built-in checks, and integrated weather information, making studies faster and easier to run.
Certified, robust, and dynamic methodology: Benefit from internationally recognized standards that are continuously updated with the latest scientific insights for sustainability assessment.
Scenario analysis and benchmarking: Compare different farming scenarios—such as current practices vs. improved approaches—and benchmark sustainability results against regional averages.
Transparent evaluation: Access fully documented and traceable data sources that ensure transparent sustainability assessments and continuously improve benchmarks.
Select the tab that best matches your role.
To make better farm management decisions, optimize the use of inputs such as fertilizers and water, and improve profitability and farm resilience.
Transparent sustainable agriculture performance metrics on Product Carbon Footprint (ISO-compliant), emission reductions, soil carbon sequestration estimation, and economic performance.
Fully documented methodology that ensures transparency and builds trust for internal reviews and third-party verification.
Ready-to-use report templates ensure clear, comparable and consistent communication of results.
Identify concrete opportunities to improve sustainability performance and support credible sustainability claims.
Use results for internal steering, reporting, supplier engagement, and external B2B communication, with review and governance options.
AgBalance® easily scales across crops, regions, and farming systems. It delivers consistent results globally and is ready for evolving regulatory and customer needs.
Dr. Maria Stenull brings extensive expertise in AgBalance® and life cycle assessment, backed by many years of professional experience in the field. For further information or to request test access to the tool, please contact her directly. She can provide detailed insights into how AgBalance® supports comprehensive sustainability assessments and contributes to informed decision‑making.
maria.stenull@basf.com
