Environmental impacts of imported versus locally-grown fruits for the French market as part of the AGRIBALYSEŽ program.
Basset-Mens C., Vanničre H., Grasselly D., Heitz H., Braun A., Payen S., Koch P.
Author Affiliation: CIRAD UR Hortsys, Boulevard de la Lironde - TA B-103/PS4 34398 Montpellier Cedex 5, France.
: 78-87
Abstract : As part of the AGRIBALYSEŽ project, apple and peach from France, small citrus from Morocco and mango from Brazil were evaluated. Representative systems for each fruit were designed relying mostly on expert knowledge for apple, peach and small citrus and on a detailed survey of 8 commercial orchards for mango from the Rio San Francisco Valley in Brazil. For most impact categories, apple showed the least impacts, small citrus the greatest. Beyond the classical yield effect, this was mostly linked to lower fertilizer rates for apple and to fossil energy share in the electricity. For marine eutrophication, mango and small-citrus had the least impact, followed by apple and peach far above. For ecotoxicity, mango had the least impact followed by apple, peach and small citrus far above. Ecotoxicity results revealed the most uncertain due to the difficulty to determine representative crop protection practices for perennial crops. Complementary research is needed to better model crop protection practices, field emissions and water use impacts.