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

PARALLEL SESSION 7A: CONSUMERS 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
Figure 10. General overview of processes that are included in the product life cycles
2.2. Allocation and cut-off
Agriculture, particularly animal agriculture, can become rather complex to model accurately. There are
many reasons for this complexity, much having to do with the fact that farms can be very different and one
often has to rely on average systems. However, some of the complexity is derived from the multiple outputs
from processes and the multiple usages of these outputs, which can make the product focused goals of a life
cycle assessment a daunting task. In order to solve this problem, various methods were employed:
Applying a cut-off for manure: Emissions from management, as well as paddock manure, are included to the
animal system, but emissions from later applications are allocated to the crop system or energy system involved.
The allocation of crop products: Crop types can often be processed from their constituent parts (proteins,
oils, fibres, etc.) into multiple products, thus an allocation approach based on economic value was applied.
The allocation of animal products: Economic allocation was used to determine the relative share of the burden
that such co-products have at the farm stage and at the slaughter stage.
The allocation of raw milk to dairy products: According to the foot printing methodology of the International
Dairy Federation (IDF, 2010), raw milk is allocated to products of dairy processing via milk solids content.
2.3. Data and model
The basis for the Superwijzer is the study published by Blonk et al., (2008), the main basis of the
Vleeswijzer. Given the complexity of the product life cycles and the large range in geographic coverage
needed, a multitude of sources were used in the models to supply data concerning animal feed, vegetarian
products, land use and land transformation emissions, animal emissions, farming systems, slaughter, processing,
transport, distribution, storage and retail. While efforts were made to include all relevant aspects of the
life cycles of the various products, not everything could be included. The effects of these exclusions on the
results are most likely not significant; results were compared with existing results in literature, and the differences
can be explained by assumptions and methodological choices. A full description on included and
excluded processes can be found in (Head et al., 2011).
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Crops
Production
vegetarian
products
Production
feed
Animal
breeding
Animal
husbandry
Products
processing
(eggs, milk)
Warehouse
Retailer
Slaughterhouse