30 Aug 2026

Scope 1, 2, 3 calculations for your crops

What's new in Agri-footprint 8?

Explore the expanded datasets, refined methodologies, and updated data driving accurate footprint metrics

Agri-footprint 8 marks a major release for environmental impact modeling in agriculture, featuring a massive scope expansion alongside significant methodological updates and comprehensive data actualization.

As previously announced in our article on Agri-footprint 8’s scope expansion, this release is designed to close critical data gaps across agri-food supply chains. The new release scales the database from 4,800 to over 10,000 Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) datasets, making it an essential upgrade for precise agricultural LCAs.

Below in a short overview of what's changed or is new in this release. Over the coming weeks, we'll dive deeper into each of these updates in separate articles.

Scope expansion

From 4,800 to 10,000+ datasets

Agri-footprint 8 doubles its library to over 10,000 datasets, giving you the coverage needed for accurate, audit-ready reporting. Key additions include:

Geographic reach: expanded from 74 to 184 geographical regions
Fruits & Vegetables: over 2,600 new fruit & vegetable datasets, covering key global production regions
Sub-national granularity: regional modeling across 26 US states and 6 Australian states
Livestock: More than 26 new European beef system datasets
Production mixes: New pre-calculated mixes fully aligned with PEFCR standards

Methodological updates

Key enhancements to scientific models, spatial data, and compliance standards

1. Animal Systems overhaul

Re-architected all livestock models (dairy, beef, pig, and poultry) for full IPCC 2019 compatibility with simplified LCI structures outputting direct animal impact rather than housing units.

2. Refined peat model

Updated cropland peat emissions using a hierarchical data approach. National Inventory Reports (NIR, 2022) establish baseline country emissions, supplemented by Cao et al. (2026) crop-specific peatland data where NIR stats are missing.

3. NPK fertilizer modeling

Integrated high-resolution spatial datasets (NPKGRIDS & CROPGRIDS) to establish crop-specific, spatially weighted N, P₂O₅, and K₂O application rates per country.

4. Land occupation and fallow land index

Replaced the previous Crop System Efficiency Index (CSEI) approach by separating land occupation into a Fallow Land Index and Cropping Frequency, leveraging Spatial Production Allocation Model (MAPSPAM) data to accurately differentiate physical crop area from harvested area.

5. Blue water footprint update

Updated blue water modeling by shifting to Mialyk et al. (2024) data and incorporating groundwater consumption from capillary rise alongside irrigation, enabling region-specific water stress evaluations.

6. Rice methane modeling

Updated daily emission factors and water management scaling factors to align with IPCC 2019 Tier 1 and PEF compliance.

7. Crop physical properties

Re-evaluated dry matter and gross energy values for 58 crops across 17 literature sources to improve PEF/GFLI compliance and allocation accuracy.

8. Refined indirect laughing gas emissions

Refined indirect laughing gas (N₂O) by applying a country-specific wet climate factor (Fracwet). This results in lower, more realistic indirect N₂O emissions, especially for dry climates.

Data actualization

Refreshed baselines: 2019-2023 statistics

Agri-footprint 8 synchronizes all primary statistical inputs, including crop yields, manure, pesticides, NPK splits, trade data, and Land Use Change (LUC) calculations, to a unified 2019–2023 rolling 5-year average.

This update also refreshes farm energy consumption models, aligns background supply chain libraries to ecoinvent 3.12, and incorporates revised phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) mining processes.

Quality improvements and bug fixes

Refining calculations and resolving model inconsistencies

Alongside new content, version 8 resolves several technical and data issues found in earlier releases.

Technical fixes address wastewater process percentages, correct electricity and avoided product modeling within sugar processing, and refine allocation percentages for US pig slaughtering. Content refinements also adjusted seed input assumptions for fodder beet and maize silage datasets.

Independent critical review

Ensuring quality and integrity

To ensure data integrity and methodological quality, Agri-footprint 8 is undergoing an independent, ISO 14040/44-compliant external critical review conducted led by Dr. Thomas Nemecek, at Agroscope.

Scaled for consistency

Data generation pipeline

Agri-footprint 8 was built using Mérieux NutriSciences | Blonk’s Data Generation Pipeline (DGP). The DGP replaces manual workflows and enables cross-cutting updates to guarantee methodological alignment, end-to-end auditability, and fully reproducible results.

Learn more about the DGP

Ready to upgrade to Agri-footprint 8?

Get in touch to learn more

Rory Malone

Commercial manager

Agri-footprint 8 equips you with the accuracy and coverage needed to report impact with confidence. If you would like to explore licensing options or understand how these updates of Agri-footprint 8 affect your existing models, get in touch with Rory, we’re happy to help.