FCRN Research Library: Fruit and vegetables

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Fruit and vegetables

In the list below, icons of PDFs, Word documents and report covers will, where available, link to the relevant report/information. Links within the text will also link to relevant webpages as well as to PDFs etc.

Fruit and vegetables

Added: 07.05.08	Fruit and veg waste report In April 2008, the Waste Resources Action Programme published an interim report entitled: Helping consumers reduce fruit and vegetable waste. The report is co-written by WRAP and East Malling Research and places strong emphasis on more refrigeration.
Added: 07.02.08	Sustainable Supply Chain report The East Anglian property consultancy Bidwells has published a report, looking at the sustainability of one of Asda’s potato supply chains, from field to store. The project consisted of three interrelated phases. The first phase assessed a number of baseline indicators of sustainability, focusing on the generation of waste, the use of resources including packaging, the use of energy and the associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with the supply chain. The second phase was largely based around the findings of phase one, and looked at ways in which the supply chain’s use of resources, primarily energy and packaging, could be replaced by renewable alternatives. Further to this, economic appraisals of the renewable energy technologies were carried out and their potential to reduce GHG emissions from the supply chain was assessed. Phase three ran in parallel to the rest of the project and consisted of in-depth consumer research designed to assess current levels of understanding and interest in sustainability, renewable energy and broader environmental issues. The core objective was to test the scope to develop sustainability as a consumer proposition. The report calculates that this particular supply chain, which delivers over 100,000 tonnes of potatoes is responsible for 21,575 tonnes of co2e, over 60% of which occur at the farming stage. You can download the report here.
	Fruit and vegetables and UK Greenhouse Gas emissions: Exploring the relationship Working paper produced as part of the work of the Food Climate Research Network February 2007
	Determining the environmental burdens and resource use in the production of agricultural and horticultural commodities This report (Defra-funded Projects IS0205) is an LCA of the production of the major agricultural/livestock commodities in the UK. The 10 key commodities studied were bread wheat, potatoes, oilseed rape, tomatoes, beef, pig meat, sheep meat, poultry meat, milk and eggs. An FCRN summary is available here.

Horticulture

Added: 15.02.08

Flowers and the developing world

In February 2008. the Ethical Trading Initiative issued a media briefing paper on the conditions of flower workers in the run up to Valentine’s day and Mother’s Day. You can read the paper here.

Added: 25.01.08

Horticulture environmental footprint report

Environmental Footprint and Sustainability of Horticulture (including Potatoes) – A Comparison with other Agricultural Sectors published by Defra and undertaken by Warwick University constructs environmental footprints for twelve commodities on a per hectare, per year basis and look at a range of sustainability indicators (ecological footprint, toxicity and quantity of pesticides used, global warming potential, eutrophication and acidification potential, water, labour).

The findings for the GWP are here – lettuce and strawberries come out very high.

Added: 19.9.07

Comparative Study of Cut Roses

This report is a life cycle comparison of the comparative GHG impacts of flowers imported to the UK from Kenya and from the Netherlands. This study found it to be roughly six times less greenhouse gas intensive to import roses to the UK from Kenya than from the Netherlands, even though the former are air freighted, the reasons being:

The yield of roses in Kenya is approximately double that in Holland
The main Kenyan energy source is geothermal, whereas the Dutch is mainly fossil fuel
Roses grown in Kenya have the advantage of natural heat and light when compared to Holland where heating and lighting is needed
Roses are packed and transported in specially designed boxes which are very efficient to air freight and are densely packed

The study takes a year-round average perspective. Note that the relative GHG balance between Dutch and Kenyan roses will be different during the European summer months when little or no heating and lighting will be needed.

An earlier published Dutch study: Vringer, K., and Blok, K. (2000). The energy requirement of cut flowers and consumer options to reduce it. Resources, Conservation and Recycling 28 pp 3-28 comes to similar conclusions for out-of-season flowers.