Where do our agricultural products come from?
The provenance of agro-food products is an important variable in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies. In particular, the provenance of an agricultural product can be a major determinant of water use and land use, for example because of regional differences in water shortage and crop yield. This aspect also plays a role in climate change impacts, especially where land use change is concerned.
Unfortunately, determining the provenance of agricultural products is not always an easy task for researchers and database developers. Even multinational food companies are not always sure where their agricultural raw materials come from because of the many intermediaries in the supply chain.
Average mix of countries of origin
Our Crop Mix Tool was built to tackle this problem. The tool calculates the average mix of countries of origin for an agricultural product. It offers different methodological options and generates results for individual countries as well as groups of countries. An advanced functionality is the ability to determine the product mix on a monthly basis. Due to data availability limitations this functionality is currently only available for European countries.