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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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a reply to comments made by Muramoto and Bolda on a previous study about the production of conventional and organic strawberries in California. The authors thank Muramoto and Bolda for their comments and have made revisions to the paper based on their suggestions. The revised version now includes the fumigation process in conventional production, which uses chloropicrin and a Totally Impermeable Film (TIF). The authors also addressed comments on the organic production process by eliminating manure and including compost. The revised results reflect the environmental and health effects of the fumigant used in conventional production, but do not assess the complete human health benefits of organic compared to conventional strawberry production. The authors acknowledge that the negative health impact of fumigants may be greater than reported and should be considered in understanding the health effects of food production. [Extracted from the article]