Can the Carbon Dioxide Fixation of Processing Tomato Plants Compensate for the Emissions of the Tomato Industry?

Abstract

Processing tomato is one of the most important crops in Extremadura region, Spain, since the largest national agricultural production and first industrial processing of this sector is concentrated in this area. In these two production stages, greenhouse gases (GHGs) are emitted, but there is also a capture of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) by the plants and therefore, this study focuses on assessing the carbon balance of this activity in this specific crop area. In this work, the amount of CO2 fixed by tomato plants is evaluated, bearing in mind the production area and tomato cultivars. Subsequently, the carbon footprint is calculated, and finally, the carbon balance is established for each location. Under the conditions of this study, each processing tomato plant annually fixes 0.6090 kg of CO2, and each kilogram of tomato produced allows 0.1905 kg of CO2 to be captured. In contrast, GHG emissions average 0.0338 kg CO2 equivalent; therefore, the carbon balance is clearly positive. Even adding the emissions from the industry to those from farming, the carbon balance of this activity is clearly positive (0.0900 kg CO2 captured for each kg of tomato processed), indicating that processing tomato crops in this area of Spain could more than compensate for the emissions produced.