Expertise
Agribalyse program
Updated 03/14/2018
The AGRIBALYSE® program consisted in elaborating a database of Life Cycle Inventories (LCI) of the main French agricultural products at the farm gate, according to a homogeneous methodology shared between the agricultural partners.
NEWS : AGRIBALYSE v1.3 now AVAILABLE- January 2017© AGRIBALYSE

ADEME and all AGRIBALYSE partners are glad to provide you with the new version of the database v1.3. This new version significantly enlarges the number of LCIs available with many more feed ingredients. It corrects few mistakes and connect with Ecoinvent v3.2 for background (non agricultural) LCIs. For users of OpenLCA or SimaPro it is recommended to directly download the database from the software webpage. For other users, they can still access the data directly from ADEME on ecospold format, once they signed the user licence (see download chapter). A simplified version of the result in Excel format is also available in the download session. Do not hesitate to contact us for any question regarding the data or the program at agribalyse@ademe.fr.
Presentation
The AGRIBALYSE® program consisted in elaborating a database of Life Cycle Inventories (LCI) of the main French agricultural products at the farm gate, according to a homogeneous methodology shared between the agricultural partners. It aim is to support eco-design and transparent environmental information.
The AGRIBALYSE database is intended for LCA practitionners and GHG emission assessments in the agricultural sector. More broadly, it can be usefull to anybody interested in environmental data on the food system. The database is contributing to multi-sectorial ADEME databases such as Base IMPACT, and Base Carbone.
The French Environmental Agency (ADEME) and its partners launched the AGRIBALYSE® program in 2009 in order to produce a homogeneous and transparent LCI database for agricultural products at the farm gate. This work is part of ADEME's global strategy to support environmental assessment of production chains and products.
The database contains over 200 LCIs for agricultural and livestock products, in addition to all the data on agricultural inputs (machineries, fertilizers etc.)
Annual crops | Durum wheat, soft wheat, sugar beet, carrot, rapeseed, faba bean, grain maize, barley, pea, potato, sunflower, triticale |
---|---|
Forage/grassland | Grass, alfalfa, silage maize |
Fruits and vineyard | Peach, apple, cider apple, wine grape |
Special crops | Rose, tomato, ornamental shrubs |
Tropical special crops | Coffee, clementine, jasmine rice, mango, cacao, palm fruit |
Plant products total: 25 product groups |
Cattle | Cow milk, beef cow |
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Sheep | Sheep milk, lamb |
Goats | Goat milk |
Poultry | Egg, broiler, turkey, duck for roasting, fattening duck |
Rabbits | Rabbit |
Aquaculture | Trout, sea bass/sea bream |
Pigs | Pork |
Animal products total: 14 product groups |
Method
© ARNAUD BOUISSOU - TERRA

The database calculations followed the usual LCA steps:
- description of production system and data collection;
- inventory of pollutant emissions and use of non-renewable resources (estimated using agro-environmental simulation models);
- impact assessment.
The scope of the AGRIBALYSE®-LCI goes from cradle to field gate (for plant products) or farm gate (for animal products). Thus, processing, packaging and distribution steps are not included.
Concerning calculation and modeling tools, AGRIBALYSE programs now relies on MEANS-InOut plateform, developed[VC1] by INRA.
Organisation
In order to increase the number of data and improve the quality of the database a new phase of AGRIBALYSE was launched for the period 2014-2018.AGRIBALYSE 2 was built as a program coordinating several projects running in parallel. The priorities are the following :
- Developing new data, especially for production systems with high environmental performances (eco-design)
- Methodological improvement
- Improvement of calculation tools
Figure of AGRIBALYSE 2 organisation
AGRIBALYSE® Partners
The members of the steering comitee are :- ADEME
- INRA
- MEDDE
- ACTA
- Agrosolutions / InVivo
- CIRAD
- UNEP : Llorenç Mila Canal
- Agroscope : Gérard Gaillard
- Peter Koch Consulting

Supporting documentation is available for download here
AGRIBALYSE database v1.3 is available in LCA format directly through LCA softwares' platforms (OpenLCA, SimaPro).A summary Excel file is available on ADEME webpage for free download, with main LCI and LCIA indicators.
Methodology report AGRIBALYSE v1.3
(PDF - 6.55 MB )
Summary Excel files AGRIBALYSE v1.3
(XLSX - 360.15 KB )
Report of changes AGRIBALYSE v1.2 to v1.3.pdf
(PDF - 1.05 MB )
AGRIBALYSE : principales publications
(PDF - 229.58 KB - 02/23/2017)
For further information or questions please contact: agribalyse@ademe.fr
AGRIBALYSE: Assessement and Lessons for the future
(PDF - 2.7 MB - 06/10/2015)
It describes the steps of the projects, main lessons learned as well as limits and research perspectives for the results.
AGRIBALYSE: Advices for the proper use of the results
(PDF - 596.82 KB - 06/10/2015)
Short note: Highlights the main points to consider for a proper use and interpretation of the results.