Help with pesticide flows with no providers

Question

Hello,

I am currently doing a comparative LCA between organic and conventional apples. However, I've had trouble finding two pesticide flows to correctly finish my processes: "Difenoconazole" and "Spinosad". The flows I found listed as such are CUTOFF or Elementary Flows, and thus don't have any providers or impact in the final analysis.

So far I've inserted these two flows as "unspecified pesticide" in my processes. Considering difenoconazole is a pesticide residue on conventional apple and spinosad is one of the few pesticides approved for organic farming, I feel like this category doesn't make this distinction at all... By any chance, would anyone happen to know if these two pesticides can be found in free online databases with their proper providers? Thank you for your help.

Sincerely,
Magdalena

Answer 1

Hi Magdalena,

I see, so you basically search for a production process dataset for these pesticides, to be included in your LCA model? That is probably not easy; I have seen some cases where a generic pesticide process is used to reflect the supply chain impacts; you could model the effects of pesticides on the apple then specifically, although I have also seen several studies where this effect is plainly ignored (which leads to an unfair or at least imperfect comparison, admittedly). Good luck!

Andreas

Comments

Dear Andreas,

Thank you so much for your reply. That's correct, I am trying to find a more precise production process dataset for pesticides. What you are mentioning is unfortunately true, as I haven't been able to do so yet. Nonetheless, thank you for your views on the matter and your kind words of encouragement.

Regards,
Magdalena