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
An LCIA-based typology for more representative results and refined
data collection of a horticultural cropping system in the Tropics. The
case of tomato production in Benin, West Africa
Aurélie Perrin 1,* , Claudine Basset-Mens 1 , Wilfried Yehouessi 2 , Joel Huat 1 , Benoit Gabrielle 3
1 CIRAD- UPR Hortsys, TA B-103/PS4 -Boulevard de la Lironde, F-34398 Montpellier Cedex 5, France
2 Faculté des Sciences Agronomiques (FSA) de l’Université d’Abomey – Calavi (UAC), Benin
3 AgroParisTech, INRA, UMR 1091 Environnement et Grandes Cultures, F-78850 Grignon, France
* Corresponding author. E-mail: aurelie.perrin@cirad.fr
ABSTRACT
Application of Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) to horticultural products raises renewed and specific issues, especially in tropical areas.
Given the scarcity of data and expert knowledge in these areas, the first challenge lies in obtaining Life-Cycle Inventory (LCI) representative
of the diversity of cropping systems involved in the production function. In this study, we identified the cropping systems’
components that are likely to influence the environmental impacts of the production, and their variability. To explore the diversity of
cropping systems from an LCA perspective, 12 cropping systems producing dry season tomato production in the coastal area of
Benin were selected based on local-expert knowledge and assessed with LCA. A two-step statistical analysis (CPA-AHC) allowed to
produce a typology of cropping systems with regard to their environmental impacts and highlights the key components responsible
for the hot-spots. This result has direct implications for a better design of data collection in a highly complex system.
1. Introduction
The growing awareness regarding the environmental issues associated with global food supply chains has
now reached the fruits and vegetables sector, stressing the need for evaluating products with different origins
and the associated technologies (Martínez-Blanco et al., 2011). Although the relevance of Life-Cycle Assessment
(LCA) to assess agricultural systems has been validated for a large number of products (Brentrup et
al., 2004), its application to horticultural production systems especially in tropical contexts is more recent
and comes with renewed and specific issues. Considering the scarcity in data and expert knowledge in tropical
areas, the first challenge lies in obtaining Life-Cycle Inventory (LCI) data representative of a given function
at a given scale according to the goal and scope defined in a particular LCA. Little attention has been
paid to LCI data for horticultural crops in the tropics. Characterising the whole diversity and complexity of
these cropping systems is indeed data- and time-consuming. Methods are required to identify the key characteristics
of cropping system specificities that determine their environmental impacts. The purpose of the present
study was to propose and test an approach that allows the identification of such key drivers relevant to
the LCA results for horticultural crops in the Tropics. We set out 1) to classify cropping systems with a typology
based on their potential impacts, and 2) to analyse the contribution of cropping system components to
the environmental impacts of the systems. Here, we focused on dry land tomato cropping systems in Benin,
as a case-study. The proposed approach is generic and should be useful for designing a more efficient data
collection protocol, for researchers and industrials who want to properly assess the environmental impact of
tropical fruits and vegetables.
2. Material and methods
2.1. Field selection and characteristics
This case-study was based on the 2011 dry season tomato production in the coastal area of Benin. Benin
is located in West Africa, and its coastline presents a subequatorial climate with two dry and two rainy seasons
every year. The main season for growing tomatoes in West Africa is the longest rainy season as it does
not require extra work and infrastructure for irrigation. Nevertheless, out-of-season tomato is grown commonly
on the coast, where water is available for irrigation, to provide all-year long fresh tomatoes for traditional
dishes. Among the 50 tomato growers identified in the region, 12 were selected based on two criteria,
presenting all three modalities: geographical location (in the vicinity of Cotonou, Pahou, and Grand-Popo,
which are the largest cities in the area) and irrigation systems (manual, hose and sprinkler). On the basis of
local expert knowledge, the field selection aimed to cover the different combinations of these modalities at
regional scale. Each agricultural operation occurring in the field was recorded and quantified during the full
crop-cycle, from nursery to harvest. The main characteristics of the selected fields are displayed in Table 1.
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