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

GROUP 2, SESSION A: CARBON OR WATER FOOTPRINTS, SOIL, BIODIVERSITY 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
736
56. Soil quality aspects in food LCA
Taija Sinkko * , Merja Saarinen
MTT Agrifood Research Finland, Corresponding author. E-mail: taija.sinkko@mtt.fi
Soil quality is a crucial issue in food production and consumption from a sustainability point of view. However,
there is no commonly accepted soil quality impact indicator in food LCA. Soil quality can be defined
as “The capacity of soil to function within ecosystem boundaries to sustain biological productivity, maintain
environmental quality, and promote plant and animal health” (Doran and Parkin 1994). Soil properties are
generally divided into three categories; biological, chemical and physical quality characters. The methodology
of soil quality assessment should adequately reflect all the main soil characters and/or their interface.
The aim of this on-going study is to 1) review suggested soil quality indicators for LCA, 2) assess their practical
applicability in process-based food LCA, 3) adapt or further develop the methodology for soil quality
assessment in process-based food LCA, and 4) (preliminarily) assess soil quality of case-products. Through a
literature survey we compiled some methods suggested for the assessment of land use impacts on soil quality
in LCA (e.g. Muys and García Quijano 2002, Achten et al. 2008, Wagendorp et al. 2006). The methods include
numerous indicators, and lack of data is one of the major challenges for practical application. Therefore,
Milà i Canals et al. (2007) proposed a sole indicator, soil organic matter (SOM), to assess land use impacts
on soil quality. However, SOM of arable land changes rather slowly from an annual measurements
point of view. This reduces its flexibility as an indicator, restricting feedback for improvements. According
to the ISO 14040 series, LCA impact category implies how production of a certain product affects nature; i.e.
the reference situation is a natural stage. The suggested methods in the literature represent this approach, but
the approach of sustainable development challenges it. Actually, the field should remain a field, and farming
practices should maintain or improve soil quality so that farming can continue (within ecosystem boundaries).
A concept of ecosystem service takes this aspect into account as it is based on the concept of sustainable
use of natural resources. It was decided to take this as the theoretical basis for developing a soil quality
indicator in this study.
Based on reviewing and assessing methods we concluded that a new methodology (incl. theoretical background)
is needed. We initiated an interaction between specialists from different branches of soil science to
establish which aspects should be included in the soil quality indicator to ensure that it is amenable to follow-up
measurements and, for example, is sensitive to differences between organic and conventional cultivation
methods.
The study is included in the project “Towards Sustainable Food Choices – Consumer Information on Nutrition
and Environmental Impacts of Food in the Context of Sustainability” funded by the Finnish Ministry of
Agriculture and Forestry and MTT Agrifood Research Finland.
References
Achten, W.M.J., Mathjis, E., Muys, B., 2008. Proposing a life cycle land use impact calculation methodology.
Proc. 6 th Int. Conf. on LCA in Agri-Food Sector, Zurich, pp. 22-33.
Doran, J.W., Parkin, T.B., 1994. Defining and assessing soil quality. In: J.W. Doran et al. (eds.) Defining
Soil Quality for a Sustainable Environment. Soil Science Society of America, Madison, WI, Special Publication
35, pp. 3-22.
Milà i Canals, L., Romanyà, J., Cowell, S.J., 2007. Method for assessing impacts on life support functions
(LFS) related to the use of “fertile land” in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). J Clean Prod 15, 1426-1440.
Muys, B., García Quijano, J., 2002. A new method for Land Use Impact Assessment in LCA based on ecosystem
exergy concept. Internal report.
Wagendorp, T., Gulinck, H., Coppin, P., Muys, B., 2006. Land use impact evaluation in life cycle assessment
based on ecosystem thermodynamics. Energy 31, 112-125.