Life cycle assessment (LCA) of organic poultry production

Applicants are invited for a PhD fellowship/scholarship at Graduate School of Technical Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark, within the Agroecology programme. The position is available from 1 February 2025 or later. You can submit your application via the link under 'how to apply'.

Title
Life cycle assessment (LCA) of organic poultry production

Research area and project description
Livestock production systems including poultry and egg production face challenges in terms of climate and environmental impact and animal welfare. Faced with those challenges, there is a need to explore alternative systems. Novel and dual-purpose organic poultry systems to combine meat and egg production are alternative systems that aims to maximize productivity, animal welfare, product quality, consumer acceptance, and minimize environmental impact and carbon footprint of the products. To test the effect of those organic poultry production systems, they should be assessed with regard to climate and environmental impacts. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is one of the main tools for assessing climate and environmental impact of food production, which is also recognised by the EU.

The main aim of this PhD study is to assess the climate and environmental impacts of from two different organic poultry production systems using life cycle assessment comparing 1) dual-purpose concept, where females are used for both egg- and meat production and males for meat production, with 2) the specialised systems with egg production from a more efficient layer genotype, and meat production with the organic broiler genotypes used in the present production. The study will be connected to the GUDP project HOPeS and related projects. The overall purpose of HOPeS is to establish an organic dual-purpose production and identify strategies that can improve the resource efficiency of an alternative poultry production creating high product diversity and quality, and which comply with goals for high animal welfare as well as green and economic sustainability in the production.
For this PhD project, we are looking for candidates with knowledge about agricultural systems, and a good overview of environmental impacts along with good analytical and mathematical skills.

You will be part of a team of researchers working on sustainability of food and agricultural systems with many years of experience with life cycle assessment of food. The project will be a collaboration between a team of people at Department of Agroecology, Department of Animal and Veterinary Science and various other partners. In our LCA team at Aarhus University, we are working on a range of closely related LCA projects. Our LCA team is placed in the section of ‘Agricultural Systems and Sustainability’, where our other colleagues are working on other aspects of system research in agriculture such as socio-economic sustainability, organization of food systems, organic livestock systems and sustainable resource management.

Project description
For technical reasons, you must upload a project description. Please simply copy the project description above and upload it as a PDF in the application.

Qualifications and specific competences
Applicants to the PhD position must have a relevant Master’s degree within agrobiology, agricultural sciences, biosystems engineering, biology or similar or a Bachelor degree within Agrobiology at Aarhus University.

Place of employment and place of work
The place of employment is Aarhus University, and the place of work is Department of Agroecology, Section for Agricultural Systems and Sustainability, Blichers Alle 20, 8830 Tjele.

Contacts
Applicants seeking further information are invited to contact:

• Marie Trydeman Knudsen, [email protected] (main supervisor)
• Lisbeth Mogensen, [email protected] (co-supervisor)

How to apply
Please follow this link to submit your application.

Application deadline is 16 December 2024 at 23:59 CET.

Preferred starting date is 1 February 2025.

For information about application requirements and mandatory attachments, please see our application guide.
Please note:

• Only documents received prior to the application deadline will be evaluated. Thus, documents sent after deadline will not be taken into account.
• The programme committee may request further information or invite the applicant to attend an interview.
• Shortlisting will be used, which means that the evaluation committee only will evaluate the most relevant applications.

Aarhus University’s ambition is to be an attractive and inspiring workplace for all and to foster a culture in which each individual has opportunities to thrive, achieve and develop. We view equality and diversity as assets, and we welcome all applicants. All interested candidates are encouraged to apply, regardless of their personal background. Salary and terms of employment are in accordance with applicable collective agreement.