Page 141 - Ecuador's Banana Sector under Climate Change

chapter 5: the carbon footprint of ecuador’s banana
combustion of fuel (diesel and gasoline) that is used in pumps and agricultural machinery (terrestrial and aerial application of chemicals), the N2O emissions from fertilized soils and the overseas production of fertilizers. The two latter items are more relevant to conventional plantations due to the amount and type of the fertilizers used. Furthermore, their N-content is higher than the N2O emissions, which are also significant.
Svanes (2012) has identified the emissions - mainly methane (CH4)- that emanate from landfills of organic waste as one of the key issues (31 percent). In this study - and according to the information provided by the farmers - organic waste is left on the plantations, contributing to the fertilization of the soil. This, therefore, does not generate CH4, since anaerobic conditions do not take place. The other main contributors to GHG emissions that have been identified by Svanes (2012) are similar to those in this report. These are N2O emissions (29 percent), fertilizer production (23 percent) and fossil fuel combustion
(7 percent).
The Luske (2010) study indicated that N2O emissions are very significant
(47 percent), followed by fertilizer production (36 percent), crop protection manufactures (9 percent) and fuel combustion (7 percent). The same key components to GHG emissions were identified by Eitner et al. (2012), where fertilizer production was 27 percent, pesticide production was 22 percent,
N2O emissions were 26 percent and fuel combustion was 22 percent for the conventional farm. On the other hand, according to the same study, the organic method is dominated by N2O emissions (54 percent) and CO2 is emitted from the application of lime (26 percent).42
N2O direct emissions are, therefore, a significant issue, making it compelling for this study to achieve the best estimation. The values obtained vary from 41 kg CO2eq/tonne of organic bananas (62 kg according to Eitner et al. (2012)) to 100 kg CO2eq/tonne of conventional bananas (91 kg according to Eitner et al. 2012), representing an average value of to 71 kg CO2eq/tonne of bananas. This figure
is slightly higher than the values reported by Luske (2010) (65 kg CO2eq/tonne) and Svanes (2012) (62 kg CO2eq/tonne), but these authors applied the default emission factors reported by the IPCC (IPCC, 2007), which are suitable for a
mild climate. The factors applied in this analysis have been modified for a tropical climate and the particular types of soil that exist in the area.
With regard to banana packaging, cardboard is the main component, contributing to 82 percent of emissions - slightly lower than the value reported by Luske (2010) (84 percent) and Svanes (2012) (89 percent). Note that in this study the manufacturing of the cardboard boxes has been modeled on the basis of data provided by a local producer, resulting in a contribution in absolute terms of 66 kg CO2eq/tonne of bananas, which is lower than all the values reported in the other studies: 67 kg CO2eq/tonne of bananas (Svanes, 2012), 87 kg CO2eq/tonne of bananas (Luske, 2010), 94 kg CO2eq /tonne of bananas
42 Note that in this study, CO2 emissions from the application of lime were not included, as this compound was only used in 6 of the 17 farms inventoried. These were at a lower dose in comparison with nitrogen fertilizers.
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