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

GROUP 3, SESSION A: LABELLING, CONSUMERS, DIET 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
71. The impacts of food choices on the state of the Baltic Sea - example
of the EIOLCA study
Virpi Vorne 1,* , Yrjö Virtanen 2 , Sirpa Kurppa 2 , Sanna Hietala 1 , Matti Verta 3 , Juha Grönroos 3 , Liina Laumets 4 ,
Elina Līce 5
1 MTT Biotechnology and Food Research, P.O.Box 413, FI-90014 University of Oulu, Finland, 2 MTT Biotechnology
and Food Research, FIN-31600 Jokioinen, Finland, 3 Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE),
P.O.Box 140, FI-00251 Helsinki, Finland, 4 University of Tartu, Ülikooli 18, 50090 Tartu, Estonia, 5 University
of Latvia, 19 Raina Blvd., Riga, LV 1586, Latvia, Corresponding author. E-mail: virpi.vorne@mtt.fi
The Baltic Sea is a small and relatively shallow brackish body of water located in northern Europe. It is the
second largest brackish water basin in the world and is also considered to be the most polluted. Low salinity
also makes the Baltic’s unique ecosystems sensitive to changes resulting from human activity. One of the
biggest problems is accelerating eutrophication caused by nutrient inflow and deposit.
The food production chain is one the most resource demanding and polluting sectors. Agriculture and the
food chain are largely responsible for eutrophication and pollution of waterways. Food consumption represents
a significant part of the environmental load of households and, in addition, food can contain hazardous
compounds resulting, for example, from farming and livestock production and traces of harmful chemicals,
like those in fertilisers.
An average 3 600 tonnes of phosphorus and 78 000 tonnes of nitrogen were leached into the Baltic Sea from
Finland annually between 2000 and 2006. Approximately 28% of the phosphorus and 36% of the nitrogen
load were from natural sources. The runoffs of the food chain were estimated at 2 320 tonnes of phosphorus
and 34 680 tonnes of nitrogen in 2005, corresponding to about 80% of the diffuse phosphorus load, and
about 70% of the diffuse nitrogen load from socio-economic activities. Raw material production governs the
total environmental load of the domestic food chain. Its contribution to the eutrophic emissions is 83% on
average. About 95% of nitrogen and phosphorus leaching stems from raw material production.
Based on the results of the EIOLCA food chain model, the eutrophication intensity varies among different
foodstuffs: beef has the highest eutrophication intensity of all meats, about three times higher than that of
pork, and seven times that of poultry. The eutrophication impacts of plants also vary among species: grain
has the highest intensity of the plant-based raw materials.
Eutrophication intensity was estimated for Estonian and Latvian food raw materials using the Finnish
EIOLCA model, which was modified for the emission factors of the raw material production sectors. For
Estonia eutrophication intensity estimates appeared higher than for Finland. For the Latvian cereals the estimate
was considerably lower than for the Finnish ones. This reflected through grain fodder to pork, poultry
and eggs.
The effects of diet were studied with help of the EIOLCA food chain model as part of a project on the coherency
assessment of other policies with the environmental policies in Finland. The modelling results indicated
that eutrophication caused by the food chain could be reduced by about 7% if the recommended diet were to
have full effect on private food consumption. The eutrophication intensities, which are the gradients of the
changes and are much higher for animal protein foods than for carbohydrate foods, explain the change.
Human activity and land-based agricultural operations exert key effects on the nutrient contents of the Baltic
Sea. The most important factors are the total area of agricultural land, its local distribution, diversity and
volumes of different crops produced, use of fertilisers, and other agricultural operations. Nutrient load into
the Baltic Sea can be reduced by improving crop yields, by optimising crop selection and fertiliser use, and
by practising efficient nutrient recycling.
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