Carbon footprints of tea production in smallholder plantations: A case study of Fenghuang Dancong tea in China

[Display omitted] •We calculate carbon footprints (CF) of different smallholder tea plantations.•CF of mid-low-altitude plantations is more than twice of that of high-altitude ones.•Fertilizer and electricity inputs contribute greatly to the CF in tea production.•Farmers’ adoption of different management measures is driven by tea profits.•Suggestions are made for balancing carbon reduction with economic benefits. The high fertilizer application in tea planting and the large energy consumption in tea processing have raised concerns about greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of tea production. China is the world's largest tea production country, but its tea production is dominated by smallholder farmers. Therefore, when it comes to GHG emission reduction in tea production, specific measures need to be developed for the smallholder mode. The purpose of this study is to reveal the characteristics and influencing factors of GHG emissions of smallholder tea plantations, as well as to develop GHG emission reduction measures suitable for the smallholder mode. Here, we focus on Fenghuang Dancong tea and two types of smallholder tea plantations, the high-altitude tea plantation (HTP11HTP: the high-altitude tea plantation; MLP: the mid-low-altitude tea plantation; CF: carbon footprint; GHG: greenhouse gas; CO2-eq: CO2 emission equivalent; LCA: life cycle assessment.) and the mid-low-altitude tea plantation (MLP), in Fenghuang Town, Chaozhou City, China. The carbon footprint (CF) method is employed, which is a widely used method for estimating GHG emissions and expressed in CO2 emission equivalent (CO2-eq). The assessment on the CF of the Fenghuang Dancong tea production and a comparative analysis between the HTP and the MLP have been made. Results show that (1) at the tea planting stage, fertilizer input is the main contributor to the CFplanting; electricity input is the primary component of the CFprocessing at the tea processing stage; (2) considering the two stages of tea planting and processing, the CFtea of the MLP is more than twice that of the HTP; (3) the production and management measures adopted by tea farmers have a significant impact on the CFtea, which are mainly driven by economic interests. In view of these findings, we emphasize the importance of balancing GHG emission reduction with economic benefits and propose GHG emission reduction measures such as formulating subsidy policies for organic fertilizers, promoting green and organic product certification, im