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

PARALLEL SESSION 4C: CROP PRODUCTION SYSTEMS 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
ing results. In general, converting resource consumption or environmental impacts to units of land use allows
evaluation of the impacts of cultivating a certain area. This parameter is also called the impact intensity of a
farm (Mouron et al., 2006). The land-based functional unit in fruit production is complementary to the massbased
functional unit because they give different results and both should be used. Indeed, when considering
just impacts per unit area, low input-output systems will have better ranking for decreased impacts at regional
level, but may create a need for additional land use elsewhere, giving rise to additional impacts (van
der Werf et al., 2007). Furthermore, as most of fruit are rapidly perishable products, quantification of product
loss in the supply chain would be needed in order to evaluate the environmental impact of the product actually
consumed (Schau and Fet, 2008).
Data origin. Most studies (11 papers) are based on data collected from commercial orchards, either directly
in field surveys or with questionnaires or interviews with farmers. Sometime these approaches are
mixed and the data collection method used for the different data in the study is not always clearly described.
Four studies investigate commercial orchards and then compare the field dataset obtained with reference
values. This approach allows conclusions about specific orchards to be drawn, while the validation allows
identification of unusual agricultural practices only of interest for the specific farm (e.g. Milà i Canals et al.,
2006). The other method used to obtain statistically robust datasets is to consider a larger number of commercial
orchards and look at average values for these farms. Seven studies used literature and available databases
in order to obtain data instead of surveying commercial orchards. Appling this methodology it possible
to achieve more generic results, but it could be impossible to consider site specific differences among orchards.
Environmental impact assessment method. Using different environmental impact assessment methods
may lead to different conclusions. Across reviewed papers, the typical impact categories are the categories
which quantifies environmental impacts on ecosystems more than the ones on resource consumption or human
toxicity; with particular attention to the potentials of global warming, eutrophication, and acidification.
The first one is mainly related to the combustion of fuels, thus it is considered a key indicator in studies involving
comparison of systems with different transport distances (e.g. Blanke and Burdick, 2005). Eutrophication
and acidification are generally more related to the use of fertilisers and pesticides, thus they depend on
the agro-technique used and climatic conditions.
When defining the impact categories for fruit production, it is very important to consider the typical environmental
problems that may arise in orchards (Milà i Canals and Polo, 2003). Fruit is usually produced in
sunny regions because sun increases yield and improves fruit quality. However, these regions are also prone
to water scarcity and resulting losses of nutrients and pesticides to the surrounding environment. These effects
can influence all impact categories, but particularly nutrient enrichment potential and acidification potential
(Coltro and Mourad, 2009), as well as human toxicity.
4. Conclusions
Despite a general standardisation of phases in orchard management, the high variability in agrotechniques
and fruit products leads to different way of applying LCA in such systems. Nevertheless a tentative
to standardise research protocols when applying environmental assessment method in fruit production is
needed. In particular about the set of indicators and the orchard model that should be considered. Otherwise
result may be impossible to compare and results risk remaining isolated to the case study. Being able to
compare the results from different studies would be important also in order to identify sustainability threshold,
as suggested by several authors (e.g. Van der Werf and Petit, 2002).
Suggestions for standardisation of assessment methods application in fruit production may consider the
inclusion of the whole lifetime of the orchard in the system boundaries. As a consequence also impacts from
orchard installation, destruction and the nursery phase should be assessed. As orchards are not a single year
production system (as can be open field crops), the application of an environmental indicator just to the full
production year will probably underestimating the real ecological impact, in a variable percentage (in our
studies about 30% depending on fruit considered and assessment method) (Fig.1).
As in other reviews about similar topics (Petti et al., 2010) one of the most frequent problems was the difficulty
in finding specific data and characterisation factors for pesticides and fertilisers. The fate and the effects
of chemicals in the environment are very different depending on the pedo-climatic condition of the
orchard. Therefore it is necessary implement the analysis with a predictive mathematical method which is
able to model pesticide dispersion, such as PestLCI developed by Birkveda and Hauschild (2006). Nevertheless,
the use of pesticide dispersion models requires specific competences and several pedo-climatic data,
such as soil properties, average rain quantities and wind intensities of the investigation site. The alternative
method is to considered the environmental impact of the entire amount of pesticides as emitted to the soil.
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