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Farm and product carbon footprints of China’s fruit production—life cycle inventory of representative orchards of five major fruits

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Abstract

Understanding the environmental impacts of fruit production will provide fundamental information for policy making of fruit consumption and marketing. This study aims to characterize the carbon footprints of China’s fruit production and to figure out the key greenhouse gas emissions to cut with improved orchard management. Yearly input data of materials and energy in a full life cycle from material production to fruit harvest were obtained via field visits to orchards of five typical fruit types from selected areas of China. Carbon footprint (CF) was assessed with quantifying the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the individual inputs. Farm and product CFs were respectively predicted in terms of land use and of fresh fruit yield. Additionally, product CFs scaled by fruit nutrition value (vitamin C (Vc) content) and by the economic benefit from fruit production were also evaluated. The estimated farm CF ranged from 2.9 to 12.8 t CO2-eq ha−1 across the surveyed orchards, whereas the product CF ranged from 0.07 to 0.7 kg CO2-eq kg−1 fruit. While the mean product CFs of orange and pear were significantly lower than those of apple, banana, and peach, the nutrition-scaled CF of orange (0.5 kg CO2-eq g−1 Vc on average) was significantly lower than others (3.0–5.9 kg CO2-eq g−1 Vc). The income-scaled CF of orange and pear (1.20 and 1.01 kg CO2-eq USD−1, respectively) was higher than apple, banana, and peach (0.87~0.39 kg CO2-eq USD−1). Among the inputs, synthetic nitrogen fertilizer contributed by over 50 % to the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, varying among the fruit types. There were some tradeoffs in product CFs between fruit nutrition value and fruit growers’ income. Low carbon production and consumption policy and marketing mechanism should be developed to cut down carbon emissions from fruit production sector, with balancing the nutrition value, producer’s income, and climate change mitigation.

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Abbreviations

CF:

Carbon footprint

LCA:

Life cycle assessment

GHG:

Greenhouse gas

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by the Ministry of Finance of China under a subcontract grant from the CDM center and by State Foreign Expert Agency for a “111” project under a grant number B12009. The UK-China cooperation was sponsored with the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions and with the UK-China Sustainable Agriculture Innovation Network (SAIN). We are grateful for the farmers for their patience in the field interview and for the students from the first author’s university who participated in the survey work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Resource, Ecosystem and Environment of Agriculture and Center of Agriculture and Climate Change, Nanjing Agricultural University, 1 Weigang, Nanjing, 210095, China

    Ming Yan, Kun Cheng, Qian Yue, Yu Yan & Genxing Pan

  2. Center of Agro-forestry Carbon Sink and Land Remediation, Zhejiang A&F University, Lin-an, Hangzhou, China

    Genxing Pan

  3. Carbon Management Center, Scotish Rural College, King’s Building, West Main Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3JG, UK

    Robert M. Rees & Genxing Pan

Authors
  1. Ming Yan
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  2. Kun Cheng
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  3. Qian Yue
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  4. Yu Yan
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  5. Robert M. Rees
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  6. Genxing Pan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Genxing Pan.

Additional information

Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

Highlights

• Both farm and product carbon footprints of five major fruit types from China were assessed using orchard survey data.

• Fruit production had high farm but low product carbon footprint relative to cereal production.

• Orange was lower in product and nutrition-scaled carbon footprint but higher in income-scaled carbon footprint among the others.

• Synthetic nitrogen fertilizer use contributed by over 50 % to the total carbon footprint.

• High fruit yield with low product carbon footprint sustained under high efficiency management.

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Yan, M., Cheng, K., Yue, Q. et al. Farm and product carbon footprints of China’s fruit production—life cycle inventory of representative orchards of five major fruits. Environ Sci Pollut Res 23, 4681–4691 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-015-5670-5

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