Environmental profile of bananas produced in Brazil

• Grant number: 12/23835-8
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: December 01, 2013
• End date: November 30, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Food Science and Technology
• Principal Investigator: Leda Coltro
• Grantee: Leda Coltro
• Host Institution: Instituto de Tecnologia de Alimentos (ITAL). Agência Paulista de Tecnologia dos Agronegócios (APTA). Secretaria de Agricultura e Abastecimento (São Paulo - Estado). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Thiago Urtado Karaski

Abstract

Traditional food production systems were replaced by intensive methods in order to supply a growing demand for food of an also growing population. However the increasing of consumer's environmental awareness has led producers and decision-takers to seek for scientific information about agricultural production systems. Application of LCA studies of food products and the food industry have been growing in response to the desire of consumers for information about the environmental aspects of the food they buy and consume, while for producers LCA is a management tool for continuous improvement. The available articles in the literature about agricultural LCA refer to 14 perennial products: apple, banana, orange and other citrus, cocoa, coconut, coffee, grape, Jatropha oil, kiwi, palm oil, olive, pear and sugarcane. However, further researches are needed, as well as the development of methodologies that are able to continue improving LCA studies of perennial agricultural products focused on tropical agricultural systems, which high diversity contrasts with its limited available data, either because these data do not exist or because there were not published. Thus, this project proposes the application of LCA to the Brazilian bananas production chain, a strategic fruit for Brazilian export market. Led by this study the carbon footprint, water footprint, energy consumption and other environmental parameters will be estimated. This environmental information is important for the promotion of this product in the inner and outer market, by means of self-declared environmental claims, boosting its ethical consumer sales. Moreover, the supply chain may be benefited by improvements that will be developed from the data surveyed in this study. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

COLTRO, LEDA; KARASKI, THIAGO U.. Environmental indicators of banana production in Brazil: Cavendish and Prata varieties. JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION, v. 207, p. 363-378, JAN 10 2019. (12/23835-8)