Current status on LCA as applied to the organic food chains

Current status on LCA as applied to the organic food chains John E. Hermansen, University of Aarhus & Niels Halberg, ICROFS Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methods, models and databases with focus on GHG emission and sequestration potential of organic farming systems and organic food

How to assess environmental impacts? at farm level? or the whole life cycle? per ha? or per kg product?

Area or product based environmental assesment acidification dairy production (conv.=100) 120 100 80 60 40 Acidification milk Acidification ha 20 0 D-Conv. D-Org. S-Conv. S-Org NL-Conv. NL-Org. DK-Conv. DK-conv. Germany, Sweden, The Netherlands, Denmark, Halberg et al 2005

Area or product based environmental assessment - GWP for dairy production (conv.=100) 120 100 80 60 40 Global warming milk Global warming ha 20 0 D-Conv. D-Org. S-Conv. S-Org NL-Conv. NL-Org. DK-Conv. DK-conv. Germany, Sweden, The Netherlands, Denmark, Halberg et al 2005

How to use an LCA approach? N 2 O N 2 O CO 2 Soy bean production (Argentina) NO 3 Fertilizer production CO 2 SO 2 N 2 O NH 3 CO 2 CO 2 CH 4 NO 3 1 kg milk from farm gate

Method Life cycle assessment (LCA) Global warming Eutrophication Non-renewable energy use Acidification Biodiversity Land use

Important environmental impact categories at the farming stage Global warming (CO 2, nitrous oxide, methane, etc.) Nutrient enrichment (nitrate, ammonia, phosphate etc.) Acidification (ammonia, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide etc.)

INVENTORY Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) - methods, models and databases with focus on GHG emission and sequestration potential of organic farming systems and organic food. Emissions to air (CO2, NH3, denitrification) INPUT Materials Organic fertilizer Mineral fertilizer N2 fixation Precipitation, deposition Seeds or seedlings Energy Fuel (diesel/alcohol) Natural gas Electricity Chemicals Pesticides Cleaning substances Other Land use Water use FARM Total area and cultivated area Soil type, altitude and climate Density of plants Cultivated varieties Crop and harvest management types Number of employees Emissions to soil and water (NO3-, pesticides ect.) OUTPUT Crop yield Meat and milk yield Residues or co-product transport transport transport transport Fertilizer production etc. Farming system / Cultivation Processing plant Packaging Supermarket

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) - methods, models and databases with focus GHG emission and sequestration potential of organic farming systems and organic food. Comparative values of Emissions of Green House Gasses per kg product in organic and conventional production (After Knudsen, 2010)

Example from Knudsen et al. (2010) organic oranges To compare the environment impacts in the production of organic oranges at small-scale farms with organic large-scale farms and or small-scale conventional farms in Brazil. To identify the environmental hotspots in the product chain of organic orange juice from small-scale Brazilian farms imported to Denmark. transport transport transport transport Input production Production of oranges Juice concentrate factory, Brazil Juice factory, Germany Import to Denmark

Environmental impacts at farm gate 0.055 0.050 Land use (ha/ t oranges) Eutrophication (kg NO3 - eq / t oranges) 0.044 Non-renewable energy use 10.4 9.0 7.0 827 1196 (MJ/ t oranges) 753 0.8 Organic, small-scale Acidification (kg SO2 eq / t oranges) 1.3 0.8 90 99 111 Organic, large-scale Conventional, smallscale Global warming (kg CO2 eq/ t oranges)

Results at farm gate 9 6 31 Organic, small-scale 44 Input production Transport, inputs Crop production (N2O) Traction 13 6 49 31 Organic, large-scale 38 1 37 35 Conventional, small-scale 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 Global warming potential (kg CO 2 eq./ton oranges per year)

Results for orange juice INPUT FARM PROCESSING TRANSPORT 1 12 104 29 289 Input stage Farm stage Processing stage Transport stage 1 12 43 61 29 9 64 34 12 170 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Global warming potential (CO2 eq /t orange juice) Crop (N2O) Traction Processing Truck transport, Ship transport, FCOJ Truck transport, juice oranges Truck transport, FCOJ Input production Truck transport, inputs Input production Crop production (N2O) Traction at farm Processing Truck transport, inputs Truck transport, oranges Truck transport, FCOJ Ship transport, FCOJ Truck transport, juice 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Global warming potential (g CO2 eq /kg orange juice)

Conclusion The case study indicates that Organic orange production generally have less environmental impacts per ton orange compared to conventional Inclusion of soil carbon sequestration in the calculations would increase the difference in GWP between organic and conventional even more Large organic orange farms have a higher eutrophication potential and less diversity compared to small organic orange farms Transport, especially truck transport of fresh oranges and orange juice, contributes approx. 65% to total GWP of organic orange juice from small farms in Brazil

Important aspects when comparing organic and conventional systems Difference in carbon sequestration as impacted by differences in crop rotation How to account for impacts related to imported nutrients/manure How to account for differences in impact on land use/land use change

LCA of pork from Danish farm, 1 kg liveweight pig ab farm Impact category 2 Organic pig system 1 /unit Free range sows All pigs free range Conventional system Global warming (GWP 100) g CO 2 -eq 2920 4 3320 a 2700 Soil C sequestration 3 g CO 2 -eq -300-400 0 Acidification g SO 2 -eq 57.3 a 61.4 a 43 Eutrophication g NO 3 -eq 269 b 381 a 230 1): Organic systems from Halberg et al., 2007; conventional from Dalgaard et al., 2007. 2): Calculated according to EDIP method (Wenzel et al., 1997; updated 2003) 3): Soil C sequestration: Soil C and N net changes resulting from mineralisation vs. input of organic matter and crop residues modelled with C-tool, Petersen, B. M.; 2007. 4): Statistical tests using Monte Carlo simulations in Simapro.

A pig unit has two outputs Feed Energy ect Meat Manure CH 4 emission N 2 O-emission NH 3 -emission Replacement of synthetic fertilizer

g CO2e/kg meat slaughter weight Fert.-N subs. ratio 0.75 Fert.-N subs. ratio 0.6 Fert. N subs. ratio 0.5 Fert.-N subs. ratio 0.4 Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) - methods, models and databases with focus GHG emission and sequestration potential of organic farming systems and organic food. Effect of manure utilization for crop fertilization: Net GHG emissions contribution to the resulting GWP per kg pig meat slaughter weight 100 0-100 -200-300 20

g CO2e/kg wheat Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) - methods, models and databases with focus on GHG emission and sequestration potential of organic farming systems and organic food. GWP of organic wheat as dependent on how the importeret 500 ressource manure has been accounted for, g CO2e/kg 400 300 200 100 0 Fert.-N subs. ratio 0.75 Fert.-N subs. ratio 0.6 Fert. N subs. ratio 0.5 Fert.-N subs. ratio 0.4 Fert.-N subs. Ratio 0

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) - methods, models and databases with focus GHG emission and sequestration potential of organic farming systems and organic food. Organic and Conventional Carrot production Conventional Organic Straw Cooling Low M. High M Fertilizer N, kg/ha Fertilizer P, kg/ha Manure N, kg/ha Straw, ton/ha Electricity, kwh/ha Diesel, GJ/ha Yield carrots, ton/ha Emissions per kg carrot GHG potential, g CO 2 eq. Acidification, g SO 2 eq. Eutrophication, g NO 3 eq. 83 48 72 518 15.0 61.6 122 1.00 3.6 83 48-1864 15.0 61.6 150 73 3.4 135 72 518 15.8 40.0 193 1.06 4.0 270 72 518 18.8 52.8 155 1.08 7.9

The question of land use and land Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) - methods, models and databases with focus on GHG emission sequestration potential of organic farming systems organic food. use change illustrated by organic vs conventional pork GWP kg CO 2 e/kg LW Land use m 2 a/kg LW Direct Indirect cereal Indirect soy Organic 2.6 11.4 4.5 6.8 0.1 Conventional 2.7 6.2 0 4.3 1.9

Well accepted relation between land use change and GHG to be accounted for: PAS 2050 recommend the following numbers for assessment in different countries, Kg CO2 e per m2/y Grassland to cropland Forest to cropland France/Ger/Poland 0.6 2.0 Brazil 1.0 3.7 Nguyen et al (2010) used a worldwide average of 2.2 to 2.8 Reference: Nguyen TLT, Hermansen, J., Mogensen, L. Environmental consequences of different beef production systems in the EU. Journal of Cleaner Production 2010; 18 (8) 756 766. Assumptions: Basic data Searchinger et al. (2008). When forest is converted to cropland, all carbon in vegetation and ongoing carbon sequestration that would take place each year if forest is not cleared, plus 25% of soil carbon are lost.

The question of land use and land use change (LUC) illustrated by organic vs conventional pork Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) - methods, models and databases with focus on GHG emission and sequestration potential of organic farming systems and organic food. Effect of LUC Organic Conventional GWP kg CO 2 e/kg LW, basis With LUC PAS 2050 LUC Soy (Brazil) (adjusted total) LUC cereal (Europe) (adjusted total) LU opportunity cost (adjusted total) Nguyen et al. (2010) 2.6 0.4 (3.0) 13.6 (16.6) 9 (25.6) 35 2.7 7.0 (9.7) 8.6 (18.3) - (18.3) 20

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) - methods, models and databases Conclusion with focus GHG emission and sequestration potential of organic farming systems and organic food. A wide range of organically produced foods have been compared with foods produced conventionally, and often only small differences is seen in GWP per kg food produced The variation within organic production often overshadow differences to conventional production It is important to acknowledge and include carbon sequstration related to the (particular) land use pattern in organic farming. While models exist regarding individual fields, models taking into account any effect of soil erosion through a different spatial arrangement of the fields are lacking. The GWP of organic food depends very much on how imported manure is considered it is rarely justified just to consider it as a waste The most urgent matter to consider is how the (most often) increased demand for land per unit of food produced in organic production is taken into account ( and how it relates to other environmental/cultural impacts of interest) (maybe rephrased to: How to increase total biomass yield and account for it)

Globale warming potential is measured in CO 2 -eq. 1 kg carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) = 1 kg CO 2 -eq. From energy consumption Storage of carbon in soil 1 kg Metane (CH 4 ) = 23 kg CO 2 -eq. Ruminants digestion Manure stores 1 kg Laughing gas (N 2 O) = 296 kg CO 2 -eq. From the nitrogen cycle from soil and manure stores (100-year, IPCC)

Carbon food print of a typical Danish diet, % of different sources of CO 2 -ækv.

Global warming potential of livestock products, in CO 2 -e expressed per kg of product (after de Vries & de Boer, 2010) 30