Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 15.2  Intensive use of
resources for the production
of roses as a cut flower
commodities on a per hectare, per year basis. The higher the value, the greater the
environmental impact (results in brackets, ranked low to high):
winter wheat (11.5)
sugar beet (18.3)
lamb (18.4)
carrot (19.3)
cauliflower (20.3)
onion (20.3)
Narcissus (22.3)
potato (27.1)
apple (29.2)
milk (34.6)
protected strawberry (54.9)
protected lettuce (59.1)
Those crops/commodities which required infrastructure, such as protected lettuce
and strawberry production, have large environmental footprints as do those, such as
milk, that emit vast quantities of GHGs. Field grown crops on average recorded low
scores, although potato tends to have higher footprints due to increased water and
storage costs. However because of the size of the horticultural industry the impact
of horticulture in total was low in comparison to the total environmental burden.
The total environmental burden assessed in this project can be broken by com-
modity into dairy (44%), lamb (28%), winter wheat (21%), other arable crops
(6 %) and horticulture (1 %) based on toxicity and quantity of pesticides used, glob-
al warming potential, eutrophication and acidification potential, water and labour as
indicators of the ecological footprint.
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