A Tale of Two Strawberries: Conventional and Organic Open-Field Production in California

Organic produce in general is perceived as environmentally superior to conventional produce. This perception is what partially drives some consumers to pay a price premium for organic food. To understand the environmental impact across various categories of both production systems, we performed a life cycle analysis on organic and conventionally produced strawberries in California, following input estimates from extension reports. This study found that organic strawberries performed worse than conventional strawberries in almost all environmental impact categories by unit of land and unit of production. Organic strawberries generate 46% more carbon footprint than conventional strawberries. One of the main environmental impact contributors of organic production is the effect of transportation of compost, manure, and other organic inputs, which are required in large volumes per ha. The contribution of input delivery to total carbon footprint per ha of organic strawberry production is 33%, and for conventional strawberry production the contribution is 8%. Post-harvest processing of strawberries is the activity in both production systems that contributes the most to total GWP per ha of production, up to 40% for organic and 60% for conventional strawberries.