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

GROUP 4, SESSION B: CROP PRODUCTION SYSTEMS 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
121. Comparison of CO2 emissions in the wine production from
traditional and organic farming techniques. A Spanish case study
A. Aranda * , S. Scarpellini, G. Ferreira, D. Zambrana
CIRCE - Centre of Research for Energy Resources and Consumption, University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza,
Spain, * Corresponding author. E-mail: alaranda@unizar.es
Over the last several decades there is a growing demand for products made in a natural way with less intervention
of chemicals. However, the concern arising from the generation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
from the different production systems entails an assessment of their energy consumption, as well as of their
emissions.
Nowadays, the traditional crop has a number of technological elements added by the man which has been
experiencing and acquiring more knowledge about the process over the past decades. In this sense, the traditional
crop is defined as an industrialised method that currently is used by the largest systems of production
of grape. However, the organic farming which differs from the traditional crop mainly because it avoids the
use of agrochemicals such as fertilisers and non-organic plant protection products, is gaining a high interest
in the last decade.
This paper shows the results obtained by the estimation of CO2 equivalent emissions using SimaPro v.7.2 and
ecoinvent 2.1 (PRé 2007) database, in order to assess the environmental impact of the traditional and ecological
winegrowing. Although organic farming has as main objective the obtaining of maximum quality
food while respecting the environment, preserving the fertility of the earth through the optimal use of resources
and without the use of synthetic chemical products; the results show that this technique has associated
higher amount of CO2 equivalent emissions i.e. 22% more compared to the traditional crop.
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