Economic and Environmental Assessment of Three Pear Orchard Systems in Southeastern Spain

This study evaluated the economic and environmental performance of three pear production systems in the Altiplano region of Murcia, Spain: conventional cultivation (CC), organic cultivation (EC), and organic cultivation with biological control (ECB). Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) were combined to calculate and compare production costs, profitability, and environmental impacts derived from the systems. Pear cultivation required a high initial investment although its cost accounting is dominated by variable costs. Despite slightly higher unit production costs, the organic systems were more profitable due to higher market prices. Environmentally, EC and ECB were less impactful than the conventional system in 8 of the 11 impact categories assessed. These results were mainly attributed to a lower use of fertilizer units, the use of organic fertilizers and pesticides instead of synthetic ones, and yields similar to those of the conventional system. In the CC system, synthetic fertilizer production was the main environmental hotspot, while in the organic systems the contributions were evenly distributed across different components. Compared with pear production in other Mediterranean areas, the three systems studied exhibited low greenhouse gas emissions (0.103–0.061 kg CO2 eq kg−1 of pears), mainly due to optimized fertilizer units, lower mechanization and similar yields to those reported in other areas. Overall, the results indicate that all three production systems are economically viable, profitable and with environmental performance in line with other studies. However, organic pear production, particularly when combined with biological control, is in this case the most profitable alternative and shows the most favorable environmental profile in the majority of the impact categories.