Rural Development
Mahdi Babaeian; Abolfazl Tavassoli; Mahdi Javaheri; Mostafa Jafarian
Abstract
Investigating of energy flow and greenhouse gas emissions is one of the methods to compare energy efficiency, production efficiency and environmental hazards of agroecosystems. This study investigates the patterns of energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and global warming potential of dryland ...
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Investigating of energy flow and greenhouse gas emissions is one of the methods to compare energy efficiency, production efficiency and environmental hazards of agroecosystems. This study investigates the patterns of energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and global warming potential of dryland chickpea production in rural areas of Qoshkhaneh region of Shirvan city. Data for this experiment were collected through a face-to-face questionnaire. Farms were selected by random sampling. In this study, energy inputs included: labor, machinery, diesel, chemical fertilizers, chemical pesticides and seeds, and the study output was grain yield and shoot yield (straw). The results showed that the average labor used per hectare of dryland chickpea farms in rural areas of North Khorasan was 21 people, nitrogen fertilizer 50 and phosphorus and potassium fertilizers 70 kg/ha, as well as diesel fuel consumption of 35 liters and the use of machinery 8 h/ha. Evaluation of energy consumption showed that among the inputs, nitrogen fertilizer with 3307 MJ/ha accounted for 40.06% of the total energy input and diesel fuel with 1970.85 MJ/ha, Consumed 23.23% of the total input energy. labor and seeds also had the lowest share of energy inputs with 0.49 and 1.87 percent, respectively. Total energy consumption efficiency (chickpea + straw) was 1.91, energy productivity was 0.08 kg/MJ and specific energy was 12.32 MJ/kg. In terms of greenhouse gas emissions was 399.20 kg/ha, the share of CO2 was 398.60, the share of N2O and CH4 was 0.02 and 0.57 kg/ha respectively. Global warming production potential per hectare of dryland chickpeas in North Khorasan Province was 419.13 kg CO2 equivalence. In general, the results showed that dryland chickpea fields have low energy consumption due to dependence on rainwater and lack of electricity consumption, as well as low consumption of chemical fertilizers. The most important strategies to reduce energy consumption in the production of dryland chickpeas is the use of appropriate crop rotation to reduce the use of herbicides and chemical fertilizers and also to observe the rules of farm traffic to reduce the movement of agricultural implements on farms.
shahram nessabian; neda moazeni; Hadi Mohamady
Abstract
In order to study the efficiency resulting from optimization of energy consumptionin organic farming, the amount of consumption and production inputs and their costs, obtained profit, cultivated area and … was estimated in conjuction with the three crop of wheat, canola and ...
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In order to study the efficiency resulting from optimization of energy consumptionin organic farming, the amount of consumption and production inputs and their costs, obtained profit, cultivated area and … was estimated in conjuction with the three crop of wheat, canola and tomato in Iran over a five year period 2006-2011. Using the objective function and constraints, the DEA method was used to analyze the data. All the processes of models estimation was performed using DEAP software. To calculate the energy amount in external inputs consumption in conventional and organic farming were used coefficients to convert the amount of energy input consumption, too. Finally, the energy consumptions were compared in the two cultures. According to these results, the use of organic fertilizers and biological inputs (in consequence of more energy consumption in organic specific inputs) leads to lower productivity growth in organic products. These results were significant in the 5 and 1 percent levels, respectively. Due to the type of used inputs in the inorganic products, in fuel inputs, nitrogen fertilizer, phosphate fertilizer, insecticide and fungicide, inorganic products had more consumption and hence the amount of energy inputs for organic products was higher. In the case of biofertilizer and biocontrol were also used in organic production, input energy in this part was more than input energy of inorganic products. Organic farms with lower energy consumption of imports and inputs, led to production of more energy in output. Thus the efficiency besides saving of energy consumption occurred in organic products.
