Problem with implementation of case study Avocado in PSILCA

Question

Hello,

I need to assess the supply chain of Avocado from a social sustainability perspective, comparing production in Mexico and Spain using the PSILCA starter version on openLCA.

I have two questions:

1. Obtaining the input details (inventory list) for Avocado is challenging. How can I calculate the amount of a flow in a process, considering the difficulty in finding the inventory list details? For instance, in the Agriculture - MX process, there are three flows with different amounts in USD.

2. Can I consider the processes Agriculture - MX (commodities) as a proxy for Avocado production - MX and products of agriculture - ES (commodities) as a proxy for Avocado production - ES and compare them?

Thank you.

Best regards,
Devin

Answer 1

Hi, ideally you create a foreground process or system of processes for Avocado growing and harvesting etc. and link this with datasets from the PSILCA database for completing the supply chain. That is even rather easy, typically, since you only need to know the money spent on electricity, chemicals, etc. You can setup your foreground system just like a "normal" LCA system, the only point is that you need to cover the indicators from PSILCA that you are interested in, in your foreground model.

Comments

Hi Andreas,

Thank you for your response. My main issue is with data collection. It's quite challenging to find information on the amount of pesticides or electricity used in avocado production in Mexico and Spain. Do you have any tips on how to obtain this data?

Best regards,
Devin