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Sustainability of Horticulture in Europe (Environmental, Social,
Economic): Examples from the Pre- and the Post-Harvest Food Chain
L. Bertschinger1, R. Baur1, C. Carlen2 and G. Doruchowski3
1 Agroscope Changins-Wädenswil Research Station ACW, P.O. Box 185, Wädenswil,
Switzerland
2 Agroscope Changins-Wädenswil Research Station ACW, Research Centre Conthey,
Conthey, Switzerland
3 Research Institute of Pomology and Floriculture Dept of Agroengineering,
Skierniewice, Poland
Keywords: crop adapted spraying, greenhouse energy use, Leontopodium alpinum Cass.,
carrot black rot, environmental footprint, sustainability progress
Abstract
Sustainability is a concept and a vision for how mankind deals with the
resources of planet earth. Although this concept has a basis that is not time-bound,
technological opportunities and pressing challenges for achieving a sustainable
development change with time. At present, continued IT-development and
miniaturisation (micro, nano) offer new opportunities for technological
developments. Food concerns (e.g., pesticide residues in food), globalisation, human
health problems in industrialised (and increasingly also other) societies and climate
change are actual challenges which directly affect the development of horticulture.
This paper presents examples of projects that address environmental, economic or
social aspects of horticulture for contributing to a sustainable development. For
instance, the European project ISAFRUIT works on innovative IT-controlled
spraying technology aiming at a reduction of 80% in pesticide use. Another case
presented shows the overriding importance of energy prices in greenhouse vegetable
production and how it might remain nevertheless competitive. The domestication of
Edelweiss (Leontopodium alpinum Cass.) for medicinal and cosmetic purposes
contributes to sustainability by developing an economical alternative for the
horticultural sector in marginal Alpine areas. Since 2005, Chalara black root rot has
endangered Swiss carrot production, while with a focused total chain approach, and
complementary networking, a R&D-based solution for the problem could be
developed within a short time. Finally, the study on environmental footprints and
sustainability of horticulture in the United Kingdom shows how it can be valued
with regard to sustainability as compared to other sectors of agriculture. Finally,
the paper provides some conceptual guidance how, with a simple concept,
sustainability can be improved while applying various methods for monitoring and
quantifying it.
INTRODUCTION
The “Brundtland report” (United Nations World Commission on Environment
and Development 1987) called for making progress “that meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.
Basically, sustainability is a concept and a vision for how mankind deals with the
resources of planet earth. i.e., for an economic development that can be sustained without
depleting natural resources or harming the environment. This vision may be applied to
the development of the societies as a whole or to sectors of the economy within them.
Sustainability is not a discipline of science, but scientific methods can be used for
monitoring sustainability and advancing it.
Zachariasse described the development of agriculture over time as a function of
the availability of resources and products, defining a sustainable state as a situation, in
which there is surplus of both, resources and agricultural products (Zachariasse, 2004).
The challenge of the actual situation of agriculture in Europe is, that more should be
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Proc. Is
t
IS on Hort in Europe
Ed.: G.R. Dixon
Acta Hort. 817, ISHS 2009
produced (in terms of quantity or quality) while significantly less resources should be
used for this production (Fig. 1). Agricultural and food research could contribute to this
change.
Among the first organisations addressing sustainability in agricultural production,
with strong emphasis on environmental issues, the International Organisation for
Biological and Integrated Control of Noxious Animals and Plants (IOBC) has been
publishing crop-specific guidelines that translate available scientific knowledge into
advice for sustainable agricultural production (Boller et al., 2004, www.iobc.ch). In an
attempt to address research for sustainability in horticulture with a structured approach, a
declaration has been developed in 2002 (Bertschinger et al., 2003) meant to be a
reference for the progress of horticultural systems with regard to sustainability by
scientific methods. It refers i) to the principles of sustainability applied to horticulture
and ii) to pressing problems of horticultural systems at the time, when the declaration
was written. The principles remain, but today, the reference to pressing problems
requires some adjustment. In that sense, sustainability is a concept with a basis that is not
time-bound while the application of it must refer to problems of the respective epoch. In
the 1990s, environmental concerns were among the top priorities for a sustainable
progress of agriculture and particularly for horticulture with its often intensive cropping
systems. Horticultural research has been very dynamic and innovative in meeting this
demand and has been a precursor for other arable cropping systems. It seems however
that the process has lost momentum. Nowadays, means for achieving sustainability have
a very prominent place on the political agendas of many countries and also, e.g., in the
European Union’s research framework programme addressing agriculture. Food
production standards such as GLOBALGAP are based on the conceptual framework of
sustainability. Science has played a crucial role for giving sustainability the above
mentioned recognition and acceptance as an overruling principle of development. But
can science, therefore, focus now on other issues and delete sustainability from its
agenda? Is sustainability in horticultural science a closed issue?
This paper shows that this is not the case. The pressing challenges for a
sustainable development of horticulture have changed, the need for sustainability has not.
While the environmental standards developed in the 1990s need to be maintained,
requiring permanent attention, economic and also social aspects are pressing to be
addressed to assure progress of horticultural systems with regard to sustainability.
How has the context of horticulture changed in the recent years? What are the
new challenges and which are new technologies that may contribute to the further
development of horticulture? Continued IT-development and miniaturisation (micro,
nano) offer new opportunities. Food (production) crises (avian flu, pesticide residues in
food, BSE), the globalisation, human health in industrialised (and increasingly also other)
societies (e.g., obesity, cardiovascular disease, ageing society) and climate change are
challenges which affect directly the development particularly of horticulture. This paper
presents some examples of projects that address environmental, economic or social
aspects of horticulture capable of contributing to sustainable development.
CASE STUDIES
The development of sustainability in horticultural systems is exemplified with 5
cases giving substance to the quite abstract concept of sustainability. Sustainability
includes all aspects of the development of societies. The selected range of five examples
gives therefore a too limited impression of what sustainability in horticulture may be, but
on the other hand provides the necessary specificity to it for a discussion that is relevant
for horticulture in practice.
High Tech Crop Adapted Spraying
This example refers to economic and environmental aspects of horticulture. Even
if many integrated and biological crop management guidelines provide science-based
methods and techniques for a targeted application of pesticides in horticultural crops,
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they may sometimes not be fully exploited due to economical or other circumstantial
reasons. New technology, that meets even better the consumers’ demand for healthy
fruits and vegetables, the growers’ requirements for lower production costs and the
environmental concerns of society, may make possible that the potential benefits of such
technology is fully exploited. For instance, in orchards, actual spray volume and airflow
settings of pesticide sprayers ignore variable requirements of the target plants expressed
in terms of their size and density and also of their individual health status. This can have
negative effects on the environment, e.g., if there are sensitive areas such as open water
channels adjacent to orchards (as they exits in many fruit-growing zones of Europe), or
melioration wells, sensitive crops or public sites. Precision agricultural tools could allow
to identify the problem and the target (e.g., diseased leaf), as well as to recognise the
environmental conditions in order to apply pesticides according to the actual
requirements at a precise rate and with respect to the environment. This is one of the
objectives of the EU project within the 6th Framework Programme: “Increasing fruit
consumption through a trans disciplinary approach leading to high quality produce from
environmentally safe, sustainable methods - ISAFRUIT” (ISAFRUIT, 2006). Within this
4-year project launched in 2006, a Crop Adapted Spray Application system (CASA) is
being developed by three partners: Research Institute of Pomology and Floriculture in
Skierniewice (Poland), University of Turin in Grugliasco (Italy) and Wageningen
University in Wageningen (The Netherlands). The system consists of three sub-systems:
(i) Crop Health Sensor (CHS) to identify plant stress caused by disease infection on a per
individual tree basis; (ii) Crop Identification System (CIS) to identify tree canopy
characteristics; (iii) Environmentally Dependent Application System (EDAS) to identify
environmental circumstances of spray application (Fig. 2). The objective of the CASA
system is to adjust spray application parameters automatically according to the crop
health status and crop characteristics, as well as the wind situation and sprayer position in
the orchard. This is in order to reduce pesticide input and hence improve the quality and
safety of fruits and reduce the impact on the environment.
Flexible (Integrated) Temperature Management in Glasshouses
This example refers to economic and environmental aspects of horticulture. It
shows the nowadays overruling importance of energy cost in greenhouse horticulture.
Heating cost of glasshouses has very much increased in recent years: from 8.5% of the
variable cost of tomatoes in 1996 to 25% in 2007 (Ludewig, pers. comm.). Energy must
globally for resource saving purposes and at the farm for economical reasons be saved. A
simple system by integrating the solar energy that may heat glasshouses while reducing
heating capacity helps to decrease energy costs and maintain a profitable production. In
an experiment in 2007 at Conthey (canton of Wallis, Switzerland), standard (ST) and
integrated temperature (IT) conditions were compared in 2 glasshouses since the
beginning of flowering of the third flower truss (March 13). The thresholds for heating
were set during the night in ST and IT conditions at 17 and 13-15°C respectively (in
function of the average temperature of the preceding day) and during the day at 19 and
17°C respectively. The threshold for ventilation was set at 20-22 for ST and for IT
conditions at 20-25°C until the end of April and at 20-22° C till end of August. With the
IT conditions the use of petrol for heating was reduced from 21.9 to 15.9 kg/m2
glasshouse surface from beginning of February to the end of August, while the profit
could be increased by 3.2 and 17.8%, depending on the scenario used for heating oil
prices (CHF 81.4 – 114.9/100kg heating oil) and for tomato price for the grower (CHF
2.4 - 1.8/1 kg of tomato fruits).
In another study in Germany with tomatoes and cucumber (Saechsische
Landesanstalt fur Landwirtschaft, 2006), the economic advantages of planting earlier
than usual (calendar week 2 vs. 8) for achieving better market prices were studied. It was
shown that energy costs account for at least one third (30%) of the total production costs,
and that, the earlier the planting, the more the return on investment is decreased due to
the increased heating demand and therefore increased demand for oil for preventing from
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the cooler days earlier in the year. With regard to high energy prices, profit over the
whole season can be maximised to a certain degree with higher planting densities while
attention must be paid to the fact, that beyond a certain density yield and quality become
unaccetable. And there is also an economical limit to this approach, as this study showed:
When energy costs rise to 0.06 Euros/Wh (as compared to 0.04, 0.045 and 0.05
Euros/Wh), not even this strategy helps to make early planting profitable.
Edelweiss (Leontopodium alpinum Cass.) Domestication for Profitable Production
This study refers to economic and social aspects of horticulture. Edelweiss
(Leontopodium alpinum Cass.) is a plant growing in the high Alps and protected by law
(Ministerial Act of the Canton of Wallis, April 3, 1936) from being collected. However,
popular references in Val d’Herens (Switzerland) and Tirol (Austria) say, that it can help
reduce diarrhoea, tuberculosis, stomach ache. In fact, leotopdic acid, a secondary
metabolite with antimicrobial and antioxidative properties has been identified (Schwaiger
et al., 2005). Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are highly interested in this
plant without specific genetic improvement for health and other purposes so far and
which in Switzerland is not available due to the protection by law, mentioned above. This
has lead to the idea to domesticate and improve Edelweiss to make it available for
specific production purposes. This would with no doubt be an interesting novelty for
SMEs and people living in rural areas in the Alps. Domestication would also be a
contribution to species protection in its natural habitat. A five steps strategy for
domestication was implemented with 1) the collection and study of genetic variability of
Edelweiss, 2) a study of the biology of Edelweiss, 3) the breeding of a new cultivar with
improved health relevant traits, 4) a study of the agronomical adaptation in 5 different
eco-zones and altitudes, and 5) developing production techniques such as the planting
method, planting time, weed control, harvest date, cutting height and frequency, last
steps before winter, fertilization and irrigation. A cultivar has been selected (Carron et
al., 2007), the production techniques have been developed (Rey and Slacanin, 1999) and
first industrial products, such as a cosmetic cream, are being commercialised. This case
study exemplifies nicely how research and development hand in hand with SMEs may
contribute to a sustainable rural development.
The Chalara Black Root Rot - Carrot Case: Improving the Post-Harvest Chain
This study refers to economic and social aspects of horticulture. In recent years,
black root rot, caused by Chalara thielavioides and Chalara elegans have given rise to
increasing complaints from consumers in Switzerland. In 2005, the problem reached a
drastical dimension that endangered the future of Swiss carrot production (Heller et al.
2005). In an exemplary effort, research and its stakeholders set up a project (www.qs-
karotten.ch) to which all involved sectors contributed with resources, topped by
additional federal money made available through the participation in the European fork
to farm project (www.promstap.org). All elements of the carrot pre- and post-harvest
production chain in Switzerland (such as field, harvest in wooden bins, cold storage,
washing, sorting, packaging, distribution) have been analysed for their contribution to the
black root rot problem and possible solutions (Crespo and Heller, 2006). With a focused,
joint effort, it was possible to develop technical solutions for the problem, mainly based
on the appropriate post-storage washing techniques and temperature management along
the pre- and post-harvest chain (Kägi et al., 2008) backed up by other complementary
measures. However, a long-term sustainable solution of the problem must also include
efforts to suppress disease contamination in the soils used for carrot production. The
willingness of growers to use such measures will strongly depend on the success of the
technical changes in the post-harvest part of the chain.
Environmental Footprint and Sustainability of Horticulture in the United Kingdom
This study refers to economic, environmental and social aspects of horticulture.
The aim of the holistic study was to quantify the environmental footprint of horticultural
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production and to assess to social and economic impact of production (Lillywhite et al.,
2007). In an integrative attempt, the environmental footprint (scaled average of 6
indicators including an ecological footprint, pesticide rating and others) was combined
with the assessment of 19 indicators representing socio-economic aspects. Eleven crops
and milk production were studied. The original and exemplary study provides an insight
into the various production systems, concluding with an overall appreciation of the
environmental, economic and socio-economic impact of agriculture in the UK (Fig. 3).
A Synthesis
Given the seemingly unlimited range of questions that might be studied for
advancing sustainability with respect to economic, environmental and social terms, how
can one focus the efforts and judge whether a development is indeed progressive in terms
of sustainability? There is a simple concept, derived from plant nutrition that may help in
this respect. The concept of plant nutrition says, that the nutrient that is at its lowest
availability for the plant, limits the production of the respective plant independently of
the availability of the other nutrient elements that are present and needed for plant
nutrition. With regard to sustainability, one can recycle plant nutrient elements in above
mentioned concept by factors, that conceptualised sustainability (e.g., such as economic,
environmental and social aspects according to the Brundtland report or the 9
improvement types according to the asset-based model of agricultural systems by Pretty
(1999). No matter, with how many “types” a system is describing, gains of sustainability
can possibly be maximised by improving the type or factor that is most critical with
respect to its impact on the sustainability of a production chain. However, it is decisive,
that the improvement of this type does not lead to a reduction of the level of another type
(Fig. 4).
CONCLUSIONS
There is a continued demand for improving sustainability in horticultural systems,
with changing priorities according to the needs of the respective epoch. Nowadays,
environmental standards need to be at least maintained, while economic pressures force
for more efficient techniques. This paper does not distinguish between organic,
integrated and conventional production, since the sustainability challenge is in principle
the same for all systems. While organic and also integrated production systems by its
basic principles have a high potential for being sustainable, they do not automatically
guarantee for sustainability due to the intensive nature of horticultural systems. If a
production technique shall improve the overall sustainability of a horticultural system, it
must be assured that the improvement of one type or element or factor, that characterises
the system, does not lead to a reduction of another type. A simple concept, presented in
this paper, can help researchers to keep track of this decisive aspect for improving the
overall sustainability of a production system.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to Celine Gilli (ACW, Switzerland) and Ralph Ludewig (Landsratamt
Tübingen, Germany) for contributing with results of their studies to the case studies cited
in this paper. Thanks also to the European Commission for financial support to the crop
adapted spraying study within the ISAFRUIT project (contract No.: 016279).
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Figures
Fig. 1. The actual challenge of agriculture in Europe with regard to the development of
technical (β) and social (γ) sciences over time (see Zachariasse, 2004): A
combined effort of both sciences I needed for producing more (quality, quantity)
with less (resources).
Fig. 2. CASA-system, a multidevice crop adapted spraying system, being developed by
the ISAFRUIT-project (www.isafruit.eu) including a crop identification system
(CIS), an environmental dependant application system (EDAS) and a crop health
sensor (CHS) (Doruchowski, et al., 2008).
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0
50
10 0
15 0
200
250
Glass Veg Flower Top F. Pot,
SB
Wheat Dairy Sheep
Socio-economic
Economic
Environmental
Fig. 3. Combined impact of environmental, economic and socio-economic areas studied
for different sectors of agriculture by Lillewhite et al. (2007). The higher the
value, the better (glass: glasshouse; veg: vegetables; top f.: top fruit; pot.:
potatoes; SB: sugar beet).
Fig. 4. A principle for assuring the sustainable development of a system that is
conceptualised by different categories or “types” (in case of the shown example,
there are 3 “types”, e.g., environmental, economic and social, quantified at
specific levels).
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