Page 158 - Ecuador's Banana Sector under Climate Change

ecuador’s banana sector under climate change: an economic and biophysical assessment to promote a sustainable and climate-compatible strategy
Table 53 CO2 equivalent footprint of (on-farm) Ecuadoran banana production, kgCO2e/t
Conventional
Organic
N20 Direct Emissions 100 41 Fertilizer Nitrogen-based 46 12 Packaging 81 80 Fossil-fuel related 63 97 Other Farm Chemicals 13 13 Other 7 5 Total 310 248
Source: Hospido and Roibás, Chapter 4
average GHG emissions for conventional and organic banana producers who were surveyed.56 On-farm emissions account for approximately 30 percent and 25 percent of the carbon footprint, respectively, of conventionally and organically grown bananas in Ecuador, which are exported for retail sale in Spain.
For conventional producers, who account for most of Ecuador’s exports, almost half of on-farm emissions derive from the use of nitrogenous fertilizer
or from the direct emission of nitrous oxide (N2O) – 146 kg/t in total. A gram of nitrous oxide has 310 times the global warming potential as does a gram of CO2. Thus, a minor improvement in the efficiency of fertilizer use would result in a greater reduction of GHG emissions, compared to other plausible banana-related abatement efforts within the scope of Ecuador’s policy-making. The effects of a possible tax on nitrogen-based fertilizers are examined below.
5.1 Packaging
Packaging (81 kg/t) is the second largest contributor of GHG emissions in relation to imported bananas, accounting for approximately one quarter of the on-farm carbon footprint of conventional producers and approximately one third of the carbon footprint of organic producers. Conventional and organic producers use approximately the same amount of packaging from an emission perspective, since the boxes for containerized transportation and handling are standardized. To reduce the emissions related to packaging would be difficult for Ecuador to do unilaterally, since standardized packaging is what allows
the supply chain from farm to retail to function seamlessly. Any innovation
in packaging would need to function at all stages of the supply chain. While recycling and disposal of packaging material can take place independent of package design, the best stage to do this is at the point of sale or consumption in the destination countries.
56 These averages are simple and are not weighted by the volume of production of the respective producers. The simple averages of the conventional and organic values in Table 53 correspond to the total values reported for Ecuador’s on-farm GHG emissions in Table 54.
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