Environmental Impact Assessment of Strawberry Production in Two Conventional and 0rganic Production Systems: (Case Study: Kurdistan Province)

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Abstract

         Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is one of the environmental impact assessment methods that has been developed on the basis of the production process. In the life cycle assessment, the imposed effects resulting from the production of a product, process or an activity have been investigated by identifying and quantifying energy, materials used and emissions into the environment. In this study, the environmental impacts of cradle-to-farm-gate life cycle assessment (LCA) for the conventional and organic cultivation methods of strawberry in Kurdistan province of Iran have been estimated. The preliminary data were collected from the farmers of the studied region during the growing season.   The resulting impacts consisted of the following: Abiotic  Depletion  potential,  Acidification  potential,  Eutrophication  potential,  Global Warming  potential,  Ozone  Depletion  potential,  Human  Toxicity potential,  Freshwater  and  Marine  Aquatic  Ecotoxicity  potential,  Terrestrial  Ecotoxicity  potential,  and  Photochemical  Oxidation  potential, all of which were selected  based  on  CML2baseline 2000  V2/world,  1995/characterization  method. The functional unit in the present study revolved around one ton of strawberry. Assessing the impacts of the two scenarios indicated that in all impact categories, the environmental impacts of the Conventional cultivation method of strawberry are more than those of organic production system. The results signified that in the Conventional cultivation method, fertilizers and electricity had the most detrimental impacts on the environment. 
 

Keywords


Bare JC, Norris GA, Pennington DW and McKone T, 2003. TRACI: The tool for the reduction and assessment of chemical and other environmental impacts. Industrial Ecology, 6: 49-78.
Brentrup F, Küsters J, Kuhlmann H and Lammel J, 2004. Environmental impact assessment of agricultural production systems using the life cycle assessment methodology: I. Theoretical concept of a LCA method tailored to crop production. European Journal of Agronomy, 20(3): 247-264.
Brentrup F, Küsters J, Lammel J and Kuhlmann H, 2000. Methods to estimate on-field nitrogen emissions from crop production as an input to LCA studies in the agricultural sector. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 5(6): 349-357.
Cederberg C and Mattsson B, (2000). Life cycle assessment of milk production - acomparison of conventional and organic farming. Journal of Cleaner Production, 8(1): 60-49.
Chehebe JR, 1997. Análise do ciclo de vida de produtos: ferramenta gerencial da ISO 14000: Qualitymark Editora Ltda.
Cooper  JM, Butler G and Leifert C, 2011. Life cycle analysis of greenhouse gas emissions from organic and conventional food production systems, with and without bio-energy options. NJAS Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences, 58:185-192.
Crutzen  PJ, 1981. Atmospheric chemical processes of the oxides of nitrogen, including nitrous oxide. In: C.C. Delwiche (Ed.), Denitrification, nitrification, and atmospheric nitrous oxide. New York: Wiley. Emissions of pesticides in agricultural LCA. Ecological Modelling, 198: 433-51.
Curran MA, (1996). Environmental Life Cycle Assessment. MacGraw-Hill pp. 30-65.
Fluck RC and Baird CD, 1982. Agricultural energetics. Westport, CT, USA: AVI Publications, 41-45, 51-54, 71-72, 123-126.
Graedel TE, 1998. Streamlined life-cycle assessment: Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ.
Guinée J, 2001. Handbook on life cycle assessment - Operational guide to the ISO standards. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 6, 255.
Gunady MG, Biswas W, Solah VA and James AP, 2012. Evaluating the global warming potential of the fresh produce supply chain for strawberries, romaine/cos lettuces (Lactuca sativa, and button mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus) in Western Australia using life cycle assessment (LCA). Journal of Cleaner Production, 28: 81-87.
Hauschild M, 2000. Estimating pesticide emissions for LCA of agricultural products. Agricultural data for life cycle assessments, 70.
Horne R, Grant T and Verghese K, 2009. Life cycle assessment: principles, practice and prospects: Csiro Publishi impacts. Industrial Ecology, 6: 49-78.
IPCC, 1996. greenhouse gas inventory reference revised manual. In: Houghton, J. T., Meira Filho, L.G., Lim B, Tréanton K, Mamaty I, Bonduki Y, Grigg DJS, Callander BA­ (Eds.), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. IGES, Japan,
ISO, 2006. ISO 14040 – Environmental Management – Life Cycle Assessment – Principles and Framework.
Khoshnevisan B, Rafiee S and Mousazadeh H, 2013. Environmental impact assessment of open field and greenhouse strawberry production. European Journal of Agronomy, 50, 29-37.
Khorramdel, S. Ghorbani, and Ghafuri Amin, A., 2015. Comparison of ecological production in rainfed and irrigated barley Kshvrba using Life Cycle Assessment, Journal of Plant Production preceding studies, 22 (1): 243-264. (In Persian).
Meisterling K, Samaras C, Schweizer V, 2009. Decisions  to  reduce greenhouse  gases  from  agriculture  and  product  transport:  LCA  case  study  of organic and conventional wheat. Journal of Cleaner Production, 17:222–230.
Moudrýjr J, Jelínková Z, Plch R, Moudrý J, Konvalina P and Hyšpler R,  2013.  The  emissions  of  greenhouse  gases  produced  during  growing  and processing  of  wheat  products  in  the  Czech  Republic, Journal of Food, Agriculture & Environment. 11(1):1133-1136.
Nameless, 2014. Statistics of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture data. (In Persian).
Nemecek T and Kagi T, 2007. Life Cycle Inventories of Agricultural Production Systems. Eco invent report No. 15. Swiss Centre for Life Cycle Inventories, Dübendorf, CH. Available from: http://www.ecoinvent.org/documentation.
Nemecek T, von Richthofen J, Dubois G, Casta P, Charles R and Pahl H, 2008. Environmental impacts of introducing grain legumes into European crop rotations. European Journal of Agronomy, 28, 380–393.
Pennington DW, Potting J, Finnveden G, Lindeijer E, Jolliete O, Rydberg T and Rebitzer G, 2004. Life cycle assessment Part 2: Current impact assessment practice. Environment International, 30, 721–739.
Rebitzer G, Ekvall T, Frischknecht R, Hunkeler D, Norris G, Rydberg T and Pennington D, 2004. Life cycle assessment: Part 1: Framework, goal and scope definition, inventory analysis, and applications. Environment International, 30(5): 701-720.
Sahle A, and Potting J, 2013. Environmental life cycle assessment of Ethiopian rose cultivation. Science of the Total Environment, 443, 163–172.
Schau EM, and Fet AM, 2008. LCA studies of food products as background for environmental product declarations. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 13(3): 255-264.
Scherr SJ, and McNeely JA, 2002. Reconciling agriculture and biodiversity: policy and research challenges of ‘eco-agriculture’. In IIED, Equator Initiative, Ecoagriculture Partners London, UK:IIED.
Tabatabaie  SMH and Murthy  GS, 2016. Cradle to farm gate life cycle assessment of strawberry production in the United States. Journal of Cleaner Production, 1-7.
Van den Berg F, Kubiak R, Benjey WG, Majewsk MSI, Yates SR and Reeves GL, 1999. Emission of pesticides into water, air, and soil. Pollution, 115, 195–218.
Yoshikawa N, Amano K and Shimada K, 2008. Evaluation of environmental loads related to fruit and vegetable consumption using the hybrid LCA method: Japanese case study. In: Life Cycle Assessment VIII, September 30eOctober 2, Seattle.