Performances of rice-based cropping systems and practices in Nepal : energy, environment and economic analyses | |
| Author | Pokhrel, Anil |
| Call Number | AIT Diss. no.AE-17-01 |
| Subject(s) | Cropping systems--Nepal Rice--Crop management Rice--Economic aspects--Nepal |
| Note | A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Agricultural Systems and Engineering |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | Cropping system (CS) diversity is an important characteristic of Nepalese agricultural production systems. The selection of appropriate CSs is an important determinant of the total farm productivity; a different CSs and practices requires different types and quantity of production inputs that produces different energy and economic outputs, and environmental impacts, as well. Energy use, environmental impacts and economy outputs are the three key concerns in today’s agricultural production systems. This study investigates energy input output, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and economy of production of diverse CSs and practices, in terms of their efficiency of energy consumption, relation of energy inputs to the crop yield, CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) emissions and return–cost ratio under lowland ecological domain, where rice is grown as the main crop in rainy season. The CSs studied were: Rice-Wheat-Fallow (R-W-F), Rice-Wheat-Maize (R-W-M), Rice-Wheat-Mungbean (R-W-Mu), Rice-Lentil-Maize (R-L-M), Rice-Lentil-Mungbean (R-L-Mu), Rice-Garlic (R G) and Rice-Onion (R-O). A variety of data that were required for the study were collected from the household survey by using a structured questionnaire for stratified random samples. Similarly, for farm’s technical, cost and environmental efficiencies estimation an input oriented Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach was used. Among the studied systems, R-W-M, R-L-M and R-W-Mu were found energy efficient, R-L Mu, R-W-F and R-W-Mu were efficient considering their CO2e emissions, and R-G, R-O and R-L-M were more profitable systems. Based on the combined energy, environmental and economic criteria, R-L-M, R-L-Mu and R-W-M systems are the most energy, environmentally and economically efficient CSs as compared to other systems in the study. The mean technical, cost and environmental efficiency scores of farms that obtained from DEA indicated that there was a considerable potential of reducing energy inputs (15–17%), production costs (20–30%) and environmental impacts (13–27%) in these efficient systems without conceding the economic return, with improved input mix. Similarly, among the individual crops, garlic and onion were found economically efficient, but were observed to be an energy and environmentally inefficient. Rice, maize and wheat were found energy efficient, whilst mungbean, lentil and wheat were identified as environmentally efficient. The results on energy, environmental and economic indicators specified that rice, maize and mungbean were the most energy, environmentally and economically efficient crop production systems (CPSs) in the study area. Results of DEA showed that the majority of farms under each CPSs were technically, environmentally and economically inefficient, indicating a considerable potential of reducing inputs used, production costs and environmental impacts by 15–35%, 18–33% and 30–56%, respectively, without compromising the economic yield of respective CPSs. A comparative study on rice, wheat and onion in two geographical regions viz. terai and hill indicated that the energy requirement for rice production in hill was 21% higher than that of terai, whilst its consumption in wheat and onion productions were higher by 30 and 2% in terai, respectively, compared with hill. In contrast to energy requirement, the CO2e emissions in hill was found higher as compared to terai, where the emissions from rice, wheat and onion production systems were higher by 52, 77 and 1% in hill as compared to respective crops in terai. In rice, total cost of production was 61% higher in hill than that of terai, in contrast, wheat and onion productions in terai required 7 and 4% higher total cost as compared to hill, respectively. The results on energy, environmental and economic indicators in the study showed that rice and onion production systems in terai, and wheat production in hill were more efficient in energy, environmental and economy of production. Similarly, in comparative study on zero tillage (ZT) and conventional tillage (CT) practices of lentil and garlic CPSs, results revealed that the total energy input was reduced by 38% in ZT as compared to CT practice in lentil, in contrast, for CT it was 11% of that of ZT practice in garlic production. Energy output was increased by 13 and 4% in ZT as compared to CT practice in lentil and garlic production, respectively. Similarly, ZT practice reduced CO2e emissions by 50 and 98% as compared to CT practice in lentil and garlic production, respectively. The financial analysis also revealed that the maximum benefit could be obtained from ZT, where the production cost was reduced by 28 and 33% as compared to CT practice in lentil and garlic production, respectively. The return–cost ratios from ZT and CT were 3.39 and 2.18 in lentil, and 7.64 and 3.52 in garlic production, respectively. The results on energy, environmental and economic indicators indicated that ZT was preferred compared to CT in lentil and garlic production. |
| Year | 2017 |
| Type | Dissertation |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development |
| Department | Department of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources (Former title: Department of Food Agriculture, and BioResources (DFAB)) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Agricultural Systems and Engineering (ASE) |
| Chairperson(s) | Soni, Peeyush; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Shivakoti, Ganesh P.;Datta, Avishek;Jourdain, Damien; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | AgLEARN/USAID/RDMA Project;AIT Fellowship; |
| Degree | Thesis (Ph.D.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2017 |