Life cycle thinking in organic agriculture: A systematic literature review of methodologies, trends and research impact

In response to the growing need for sustainability in agriculture, Life Cycle Thinking (LCT) has become an increasingly important framework for assessing the environmental, economic and social impacts of organic farming systems. This paper presents a systematic literature review aimed at mapping the methodological landscape of LCT-based approaches applied to organic agriculture. A comprehensive dataset of 1513 documents was analyzed through bibliometric, network, and meta-analytical techniques. The review reveals a dominant reliance on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as the core evaluative tool, while more alternative methodologies such as Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA), Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA), and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) remain underutilized. The research field is largely empirical, driven by case studies focused on product- and supply chain-level assessments. Network analysis identified three major thematic clusters: climate impacts and emission mitigation in agriculture, circular bioeconomy and resource-efficient systems, and sustainability, land use and organic agriculture. A Welch's ANOVA confirmed that studies employing multiple co-occurring LCT-based methodologies tend to achieve higher citation rates, indicating a positive relationship between methodological integration and research impact. Overall, the study highlights both the maturity and fragmentation of the field and calls for future research to adopt more holistic, multi-dimensional approaches to advance sustainability in organic agriculture.