7 Energy Consumption for Production of Some Winter Food Crops in River Nile State, Sudan Alaeldin M.E.Awad Alla 1, Anwar A. Alhafiez 2 and Salih Abdoo 3 1 Hudeiba Research Station, ARC, Sudan, alaeldinelhassan@yahoo.com 2 Economic & Planning Department, MOA, River Nile State, Sudan 3 Extension Department Director, MOA, River Nile State, Sudan Date Received 2/7/2014 Date Accepted 10/10/2014 Abstract- In this study, the energy consumption for some winter food crops, namely, faba bean; common bean; chickpea and wheat in River Nile State, Sudan was assessed. The consumption for different farm operations from land preparation to harvesting was considered for each crop. Data on fuel consumption; work rate/ hours; and average yield and areas cultivated during 2003 to 2013 were collected from different sources. Data on energy equivalent were collected from available literature. Results showed that legumes crops has energy input about 6320-6618MJ/ha, where wheat has energy input in MJ/ha about 200% high than legumes crops. During the period 2003-2013, the total energy output it is more than the total energy input, but in the last three seasons, the trend is reverse, which is indicator of none sustainability. Index Terms- legumes, wheat, energy, consumption, River Nile State I. INTRODUCTION There are some kinds of measuring plant productivity, such as measuring the oxygen released or carbon dioxide consumed in plant growth. Another way is to determine the amount of chlorophyll present in a given amount of vegetation on a given area of land as in forest vegetation. But use of energy to measure productivity offers a single unit, the calorie, which is equally useful from the time when the plant capturing light energy until it is incorporated into consumer products [1], which is suitable for field crops. Agriculture is user and producer of energy, at present productivity and profitability of agriculture depend on energy consumption [2], that the crop is a function of energy inputs; which for different farm operations to produce such crop a source of energy is needed, which it may be human; animal; fuel and electricity, those consider as direct energy inputs, where chemical and biological energy inputs consider as indirect energy inputs [3]. Depending on the environmental conditions, crops convert only 0.5-5% of the photosynthetic active radiation into biomass [4], thus assessing of energy consumption for crop production is required to understand the situation for energy use efficiency. Therefore energy use for agricultural production is under research, that analysis of energy use efficiency at different levels will reduce energy input, and time. The situations of energy inputs analysis differ to a large extent for a specific period, different crops and production system, such as study energy consumption for farm operations for some crops [2], determine energy consumption for some crops according to the farming power source [5], or determine energy use during specific period [6] to evaluate energy input to product output, this reflect a wide variation in energy analyses, specially with no databank or missing of energy inputs data, make that there is no standard procedure for energy analysis for field crops [7]. In Sudan agriculture represents the main job for about 70% of the population with a contribution of 40% to the national economy [8] and consumes about 2.5% of the total energy requirement in the country [9]. In the River Nile State, irrigated agriculture extends along the river Nile banks. The farm size holding ranges between 0.5-2ha, the winter season is the important one, with in total about 62100 hectare cultivated annually by winter food crops, faba bean; common bean; chickpea and wheat. Human and tractor energy is predominantly used in most of farm operations, where electricity is used for pumping irrigation water from Nile. Small size of farm and different crops grown, involve human energy source in most of farm operations. Study in energy and agriculture in Africa by FAO [10], from preliminary results for Sudan as a case study for the crops and areas cultivated in rain fed
8 mechanized; central scheme with gravity irrigated and traditional farming, indicated the continues rapidly expansion in cultivated area, but yields continue to deteriorate, which means increases in energy use faster than agricultural production. In the state till now, with the global interest about energy crisis, no studies concerned this topic, therefore this study carried out to assess energy consumption for the four major winter food crops and evaluate energy input to product output in the State during the period 2003 to 2013. personal interview to operators and s that carry farm operations to produce the mentioned major four winter crops with their related factors were collected, those as land preparation operations; sowing; cultural practices; recommended seed rate; fertilizer dose; herbicides for broad and narrow leaf weeds and harvesting. In the state, legumes crop and wheat were grown under traditional system, which involve human as energy input in most of production operations. II. MATERIALS AND METHODS For the computation and analysis, energy resources were classified into physical (human and mechanical), chemical and biological inputs for the different farm operations. In this study we consider all human energy input and for physical mechanical power consider only as fuel input, where chemical energy as fertilizer and herbicides and biological energy as seeds. If no data is available and energy input does not make any difference in results [11], [12], exclusion are used for some inputs, as the indirect energy for manufacturing; repair; maintenance; transportation and volume of irrigation water. Data from field book of tractor and machineries unit in Hudeiba Research station; field survey and Table 1.Farm operations for winter food crops production in River Nile state Farm operations with their operational work rate from land preparation to harvesting were specified in details for each crop in the River Nile State as in Table 1. Consider 47.78MJ/l as energy equivalent value for diesel fuel. For mechanical energy input (MEI) we applied the below equation, MEI (MJ/ha) = working hr /ha average fuel use (l/hr) fuel specific value For human energy input (HEI) we applied the equation below, consider that human muscle power equivalent of 74.6 W was appropriate. HEI (MJ/ha) = work rate () power factor For the energy input for seed it consider 1MJ/kg more than crop energy output value, and consider energy input 238, 64.4MJ/kg for herbicides and fertilizer respectively. Power input Faba bean Common bean Chickpea Wheat Mechanical l/hr l/hr l/hr l/hr Disk Plowing 4.8 4.5 4.8 4.5 4.8 4.5 4.8 4.5 Harrowing 1.9 4.5 1.9 4.5 1.9 4.5 1.9 4.5 Leveling 4.8 4.5 4.8 4.5 4.8 4.5 7.1 4.5 Ridging 1.8 4.5 1.8 4.5 1.8 4.5 1.8 4.5 Ditching 1.2 3.6 1.2 3.6 1.2 3.6 1.2 3.6 Thresher tractor 1.2 5.5 1.2 5.5 1.2 5.5 1.6 5.6 Human Seed broadcasting 2 0.9 3 9.5 3 9.5 3 1 Making border 2 5.7 2 5.7 2 5.7 2 7.6 Irrigation 1 47.6 1 52.4 1 47.6 1 52.4 Herbicide spray 3 1 3 1.0 3 1.0 3 1.9 Fertiliz.broadcasting 0 0 3 0.5 3 0.5 3 1 Cutting 4 14.3 5 19.0 5 19.0 4 19.0 Binding &heaping 4 9.5 5 9.5 5 9.5 4 14.3
9 Feeding st.thresher 4 1.9 4 1.4 4 1.4 4 1.9 Chemical kg/ha MJ/kg kg/ha MJ/kg kg/ha MJ/kg kg/ha MJ/kg Herbicides 2.4+0.5 238 2.4+ 0.4 238 2.4+ 0.4 238 2.4+ 1 238 Fertilizer 0 0 15 64.4 15 64.4 190 64.4 Biological kg/ha MJ/kg kg/ha MJ/kg kg/ha MJ/kg kg/ha MJ/kg Seeds 120 21 60 21 60 21 143 16 Data on cultivated areas and average yield of farmers fields for each crop during the period 2003-2013 were collected from Ministry of Agriculture, Economic and Planning Department (Table 2), to evaluate the impact of energy input to produce output for each crop considering that legumes has 20MJ/kg and wheat has 14.7MJ/kg energy output, by calculate the energy ratio as following: Energy ratio (ER) = Total crop energy output (MJ/ha) Total energy input (MJ/ha) Table 2.Areas and average yield of winter food crops during 2003-2013 Area (ha) Avergae yield (kg/ha) Season F.Bean C.Bean C.Pea wheat F.Bean C.Bean C.Pea wheat 003-2004 29547 4978 6576 32765 1700 1700 2000 2700 004-2005 34148 3843 9248 32766 1900 1800 1700 2600 005-2006 33364 5504 8758 31728 800 1900 800 2000 006-2007 19626 12151 6534 64412 2400 1700 1800 2400 007-2008 16356 10574 8417 32376 1400 1900 1400 2200 008-2009 18015 11385 4928 46749 1500 1500 1200 1900 009-2010 15341 3430 2200 13574 1500 1500 1200 1700 010-2011 10649 5803 1706 13565 500 420 340 500 011-2012 11869 4960 1142 16996 500 300 200 400 012-2013 11869 6720 2595 13887 340 290 250 340 III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The total energy input for the three legume crops under the study as nearly same (Table 3), human energy input represent on average 0.8% of the total energy input, where mechanical energy represent about 51%. Common bean and chickpea consumption for biological and chemical energy about 19.9 and 25.8% of the total energy input respectively, where for faba bean about 38 and 10% respectively. The obtained values can be explain by that seed rate for common bean and chickpea half of seed rate for faba bean, besides faba bean from results of many research experiments not respond to application of any kind of fertilizer in the traditional growing areas in the state [13]. For wheat, total energy input about 200% more than for legumes crops, this high consumption of energy, attributed mainly to application of urea fertilizer as 2N dose, which accounted as 63% of the total energy input, where human; mechanical and biological consumption are 0.3%, 20.6% and 11.6% respectively. During the 2003-2013, there is a fluctuation in the areas cultivated and average yield for each crop, this reflected in the total energy input and output. The total energy output from legumes crops was high than total energy input during the 2003-3010 periods; the trend is opposite for faba bean in the last season, and common bean and chickpea in the
10 last two seasons, and for wheat in the last three seasons (Fig.1). For the energy ratio, as it consider as indicator to yield productivity of the crops, legumes crops has energy ratio about 5 and decreased to 0.8 in the last season, as wheat consume more energy input per unit, it has small energy ratio about 2.1 and decreased to 0.3 in the last season. Any value of energy ratio less than one, it means more energy consumption than output energy, which is the stage of none sustainability (Fig.2). It appear from this study that wheat energy consumption is high than legumes crops, and there is a deterioration in crops yield, in spite of a lot of technical packages for each crops, as a released varieties for heat and water stress; fertilizer application and pest management recommendation packages. Table 3.Total energy input for each crop MJ/ha F.bean C.bean C.pea wheat Mechanical energy 3363 3363 3363 3988 Human energy 44.7 65.8 64.6 59.2 chemical 690 1632 1632 13045 Biological 2520 1260 1260 2245 Total energy input 6618 6321 6320 19337 Fig.1 Total energy input and output for each crop
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