LCA Food 2012 in Saint Malo, France! - Manifestations et colloques ...

PARALLEL SESSION 4A: CARBON FOOTPRINT 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
3. Results
3.1. Carbon footprint of pumpkin
The results presented here are part of one out of five pilot projects of the PAS 2050-1 (Table 1). Autumn
pumpkin was chosen here as one of the crops from the pilot project. The objective of the study was to determine
the carbon footprint for four farming and marketing systems, using primary data obtained on the farms
for autumn pumpkin as an example and model crop for the pilot project to test the application of the PAS
2050-1 during its draft version. Acreage, viz. hectare for the crop cultivation and weight, i.e., kg saleable
product for the marketing phase were employed as the two functional units with system boundaries from
seed acquisition to disposal; offset was not used.
In the farm carbon footprint (FCF), pumpkins from the organic farm with 240 kg CO2eq/ha scored best
due to the least (50 kg N/ha) (organic) nitrogen application, compared with twice that value (448 kg CO2
eq/ha) for those from the IP farm and large specialised farm. This was due to nitrous oxide emissions, as a
consequence of N fertilisation, with 99% of FCF in the cultivation phase; it contributed ca. 10% and plant
protection (methiocarb in the IP) and