Abstract
Agricultural policies should be aimed at enhancing production per unit area and help to reduce the cultivated area. To that end, it is critical to conserve soil fertility, promote ecological agriculture, employ climate change adaptation technology, significantly enhance irrigated agriculture, and decrease agricultural production risks. Sustainable agricultural production requires optimized land usage, increased energy efficiency, reduced use of fossil fuels, and minimized environmental consequences. Energy has been used in agriculture in a dramatically increased manner, and the agri-food chain now accounts for 30% of the total global energy use. Energy analysis quantifies the amount of energy used in agricultural production, so it may be used to optimize energy consumption and boost energy efficiency, further propelling the sustainable development of agriculture. Recently, the Mongolian government has expressed concerns about how to realize food sustainability and self-sufficiency in wheat production and agriculture, while also maintaining environmental sustainability. However, there is a substantial study gap between agriculture and energy analysis in Mongolia. This study investigated energy consumption and the effects of energy inputs and energy types on the agricultural production of Mongolia from 2005 to 2018. The output was calculated based on the annual wheat equivalent for the 14 major provinces as a whole. The output level is given as a function of human labor, machinery, electricity, diesel fuel, fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation water, and seed energy, and the yield and different energy inputs are determined using the ordinary least squares of the Cobb–Douglas function. Total energy input grew from 2359.50 MJ ha−1 in 2005 to 3047.61 MJ ha−1 in 2018, while total output energy increased from 2312.08 MJ ha−1 to 4562.56 MJ ha−1. During this period, the energy use efficiency (input–output ratio), energy productivity, and net energy of wheat production were studied. The fertilizer inputs were statistically significant. The contribution of nitrogen, diesel, and irrigation water towards the production level was 3.52, 3.09, and 2.33, respectively. As a result, the data indicated that non-renewable, direct, and indirect energy sources all had a positive impact on the output level. Furthermore, non-renewable energy in Mongolian agriculture has been used in a significantly increased manner.
Highlights
This study investigated the ratio of energy input and output, energy use efficiency, net energy, and energy use for various sources, such as renewable, non-renewable, direct, and indirect sources [24]
One of the properties of this production function is elasticity, which is represented by the calculated coefficients
The sensitivity of the energy inputs was examined based on the marginal physical productivity (MPP) values from Formula (12), and the results showed that machinery, diesel fuel, potassium fertilizer, and water energy all had significant MPP values
Summary
The sustainable agriculture movement originated from several reform movements in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe to address concerns about the impact of agriculture, such as the depletion of non-renewable resources, soil degradation, the health and environmental effects of agricultural chemicals, inequity, declining rural communities, loss of traditional agrarian values, food quality, farmworker safety, declining self-sufficiency, and a decreasing number of farmers. These concerns were related to “conventional agriculture, which was deemed unsustainable” [2]. Conventional agriculture is characterized as “capital-intensive, large-scale, highly automated one with monoculture, extensive use of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, as well as intense animal husbandry” [3,4]
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