Environmental Impacts of Conventional versus Organic Eggplant Cultivation Systems: Influence of Electricity Mix, Yield, Over-Fertilization, and Transportation

Spyros Foteinis,Maria Hatzisymeon,Efthalia Chatzisymeon,Alistair G L Borthwick

doi:10.3390/environments8030023

Spyros Foteinis, Maria Hatzisymeon + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/environments8030023

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Abstract

We report a comparative environmental study of organic and conventional open-field eggplant cultivation systems under Mediterranean (northern Greece) climatic conditions. Actual life cycle inventory (LCI) data were collected from local farm systems. Using life cycle assessment (LCA), organic eggplant cultivation exhibited better environmental performance per unit area (24.15% lower total environmental footprint compared to conventional cultivation), but conventional cultivation performed better per unit of mass (28.10% lower total environmental footprint compared to organic cultivation). The conventional system attained higher scores in eutrophication (up to 37.12%) and ecotoxicity (up to 83.00%) midpoint impact categories, due to the use of chemical fertilizer and pesticide. This highlights the need for spatially explicit LCA that accounts for local environmental impacts at the local scale. For both cultivation systems, the main environmental hotspot was groundwater abstraction for irrigation owing to its infrastructure (drip irrigation pipes and pump) and electricity consumption from the fossil fuel-dependent energy mix in Greece. Excessive addition of soil fertilizer greatly affected the environmental sustainability of both systems, especially conventional cultivation, indicating an urgent need for fertilizer guidelines that enhance environmentally sustainable agricultural practice worldwide. Results were sensitive to lower marketable fruit yield, with the organic system performing better in terms of environmental relevance with respect to maximum yield. When renewable energy sources (RES) were used to drive irrigation, both systems exhibited reductions in total environmental footprint, suggesting that RES could help decarbonise the agricultural sector. Finally, eggplant transportation greatly affected the environmental sustainability of both cultivation systems, confirming that local production and consumption are important perquisites for environmental sustainability of agricultural products.

Highlights

In recent years, the share of organic agriculture has been on the rise in most European Union (EU) member states
The ReCiPe Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) method was applied at midpoint level and per unit of area
Conventional eggplant cultivation makes a larger contribution than organic cultivation in most midpoint impact categories, in particular human carcinogenic toxicity and human non-carcinogenic toxicity, where organic agriculture showed 83.00% and 60.57% lower scores than conventional agriculture, respectively

Summary

Introduction

The share of organic agriculture has been on the rise in most EU member states This increase is driven by a steadily growing demand for organic products, with 12.6 million hectares farmed as organic in 2017 [1], up from 9.6 million in 2011 [2]. Organic retail sales reached €34.3 billion in 2017, making the EU the second largest consumer of organic food in the world [1] This increase could be, at least partly, attributed to EU policies for environmental protection and rural development [3] and to the preference of certain consumers for products produced using natural substances and processes [4]. The share of total utilised agricultural area occupied by organic farms (i.e., existing organically farmed areas and areas in process of conversion) in the EU-28 is 7% [1]; ample space exists for further expansion of organic farming.

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