The environmental impacts of banana production in Ecuador are expected to be of comparable importance to its influence in the country’s economy, as the agricultural sector is known to be a major contributor to climate change, and also to water consumption and pollution.
The aim of this paper is the environmental analysis of the banana value chain through two indicators, carbon footprint (CF) and water footprint inventory analysis (WF), enabling the identification of hotspots and the comparison with the environmental impacts of banana from previous studies.
First, following a cradle to gate approach, the focus is paid on banana farming, by taking into account not only the agricultural practices but also banana washing and packing after harvesting, before fruit leaves the farm.
The CF of banana grown in conventional farms (302g CO2e/kg banana) is higher than that from organic ones (249 g CO2e/kg banana), mainly due to the higher amounts of nitrogen fertilizers applied in the former. These N application rates determine grey WF too, which is also higher in conventional farms (135 l/kg vs. 58 l/kg). In contrast, the amounts of water consumed per kilogram of banana at the farming stage (green plus blue WF) were higher in the organic farms (313 l/kg vs. 289 l/kg), mainly due to their lower yields. No significant correlations were found among both footprints and farm sizes.
Moreover, CF and WF have been calculated for the remaining stages of the whole banana value chain up to final consumption in Europe (1.28 kg CO2e/kg banana and 330 l/kg banana at the consumers’ hands, respectively) and complemented with the analysis of the economic contribution of each phase to the final price (1.40 €/kg), to get a more complete picture of this commodity.
The farm system was found to be the major contributor to the whole WF, and the second largest (after fruit distribution) to CF. In contrast to the high environmental impacts of farming (which reveal high water and energy consumption), the economic value of this stage is less important than most of the remaining ones, representing only 15% of the final price and showing that wealth distribution along the value chain is still unfair for the farmers.