Page 137 - Ecuador's Banana Sector under Climate Change

chapter 5: the carbon footprint of ecuador’s banana
3. Interpretation and discussion of results
3.1 The carbon footprint of Ecuador’s banana production
The carbon footprint of Ecuador’s banana value chain is calculated in per tonne of bananas (unless otherwise stated) from the planting stage to that of consumption. Figure 41 illustrates the banana’s carbon footprint relating to the 17 value chains evaluated in this study, as well as the distribution for each stage. The differences relate to the various stages the supply chain in the context of Ecuador (from the farm to consumption), since once the fruit leaves port, the downstream processes remain the same.
The last column of Figure 41 represents the average value, where the extreme results (farms 14 and 15) were excluded due to the values representing direct emissions of N2O from agricultural soil. On the one hand, the low value for farm 14 is due to the combination of a very low dose of nitrogen fertilizer and sandy soil. On the other hand, farm 15 - where a very high use of fertilizers is combined with a loamy soil - is significantly unfavourable in terms of N2O emissions. In order to better evaluate the contribution of the various stages, Table 46 indicates the carbon footprint distritution along the banana value chain.
According to the results obtained in this study, the carbon footprint of Ecuador’s banana, consumed in Spain, is 1.25 tonne CO2eq/tonne of banana (0.84 tonne CO2eq/tonne of banana, excluding consumption). The process excluding consumption, therefore, ends at the RDC stage. Those instances
that contribute most to the carbon footprint of the banana include Plantation (22.1 percent average), Consumption (19.2 percent average), Sea Transportation (18.7 percent) and Transport from destination port to ripening facility
(18.0 percent).
3.2 Comparison of results with literature
There appear to be four studies that have evaluated the contribution of the banana’s carbon footprint to global warming:
• Luske (2010) undertook a cradle-to-gate analysis of Dole bananas in Costa Rica, which are consumed in Germany (the chain ends at the retailer). Data were provided from Dole and two plantations were assessed with information reflecting 2008: Valle de la Estrella and Río Frio. Secondary data and emission factors were derived from several sources and databases, other than that for maritime transportation, which was also provided by Dole.
• The work of Svanes (2012) is based on the previous study, but data also relates to Río Frio for 2009 and 2010. Consumption relates to Norway and results are reported for cradle-to-gate (retailer stage) and cradle-to-grave (i.e. including banana consumption).
• Eitner et al. (2012) evaluated five banana plantations in four different countries: Costa Rica (convention), Ecuador (organic and conventional), Panama (conventional) and Peru (organic). The study includes all stages until the RDC stage, and analyses each of the various locations in Europe: Costa Rica’s bananas (the United Kingdom); Ecuador’s bananas (Belgium, the Netherlands
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