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

GROUP 1, SESSION A: ANIMAL PRODUCTION SYSTEMS 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
700
31. Environmental assessment of trout production in France:
influence of practices and production goals
Joël Aubin 1,2,* , Elisabeth Samson 1,2,3 , Aurélien Tocqueville 4
1 INRA, UMR1069 Sol Agro et hydrosystème Spatialisation, F-35000 Rennes, France, 2 AGROCAMPUS
OUEST, F-35000 Rennes, France, 3 INRA, UMR1032 Structures et Marchés Agricoles, Ressources et Territoires,
F-35000 Rennes, France, 4 ITAVI, F-75008 Paris, France, Corresponding author. E-mail:
joel.aubin@rennes.inra.fr
Trout production is the main fish farming activity in France, producing 37 000 tonnes of fish in 456 companies
(MAAP, 2011). It is mainly based on rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), reared in flow through systems
directly connected to rivers. The production level of trout declined of 20% for the 10 past years, which
clearly raises the question of the sustainable development of this activity. The variable market price of fish,
the increasing costs of feed ingredients and the higher pressure of environmental regulations threaten the
durability of the activity. Life Cycle Assessment was chosen as a method to check the environmental sustainability
of fish farming, combining efficiency measurement and multicriteria characteristics, in order to
draw new perspectives for trout farming. In 2007, a survey was conducted on 20 farms throughout France,
and covering all types of production. We classified the trout farms in two groups depending on the commercial
size of fish produced: the pan-size-trout farms (11 farms) and the large trout farms (9 farms). The attributional
LCA was conducted from cradle to farm gate, using one tonne of fish as the functional unit. Environmental
impacts (eutrophication, acidification, climate change, net primary production use, land occupation,
water dependence) were calculated using CML 2 (2000) method (Aubin et al.2009), and cumulative
energy demand was added. On farm working time was recorded. Primary data were mainly used for feed
ingredients and processing, and fish farm running. The secondary data stem mainly from ecoinvent database.
The comparison of the impact categories between the two groups of farms didn’t show any significant differences,
unlike previous studies results (Papatryphon et al., 2004). Net primary production use, water dependence
and working time showed a tendency of a higher level in pan-size-trout farms. These impact categories
values indicate a lower level of management and a lower efficiency of the production system. This remark is
consistent with the high level of variability of the impacts in this group of farm. On the opposite, the large
trout farms group had low levels of impact variability, which can be explained by a more standardised production
and a higher level of technical competence. Despite the high contribution of feed production to the
impacts (climate change, acidification, and cumulative energy demand) the correlation between food conversion
ratio and these impacts was not significant in the group of pan-size-trout farms (unlike in large trout
farms). This is probably due to the multiple factors determining the farms efficiency. These results show how
the different production objectives (direct consumption and restocking for pan-size-trout farms, and filet
production for large trout farms) influence the environmental impact variability of a production activity. This
impacts variability indicates a higher level of system improvement in pan size trout farms than in large trout
farms.
References
Aubin, J., Papatryphon, E., van der Werf, H. M. G., Chatzifotis, S., 2009. Assessment of the environmental
impact of carnivorous finfish production systems using life cycle assessment. Journal of Cleaner Production.
17 (3), 354-361.
MAAP (Ministère de l’Agriculture de l’Alimentation et de la Pêche), 2011. Recensements 2008 de la salmonicultureet
de la pisciculture marine et des élevages d’esturgeons, Agreste Les Dossiers, no. 11, April
2011, Paris,148p.
Papatryphon, E., Petit, J., van der Werf, H. M. G., 2004. The development of Life Cycle Assessment for the
evaluation of rainbow trout farming in France. In: Halberg N., editor. Life Cycle Assessment in the Agrifood
sector. Proceedings from the 4th International Conference. Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences,
Horsens, Denmark, 73-80.