Abstract
This research presents the outcome of energy use efficiency and economic analysis of irrigated rice farming system in Ampara district, during 2018/19 <em>Maha </em>season, which will be useful for the farmers and decision makers. Primary data were collected from 80 farmers covering all the major irrigation schemes of Ampara district by using a structured questionnaire. The data collected on farm input and output volumes, and usage hours were converted to energy values using standard coefficients reported in literature. Economic analysis was done based on the regional cost information collected through the same questionnaire. Labor, machinery, fuel, agrochemicals, seeds and irrigation water were recognized as farm inputs, while rice yield and straw were considered as outputs. Total energy input and total energy output of rice production were 29,689±209.9 MJ/ha and 154,681±3,425.5 MJ/ha, respectively. The highest energy input was accounted by nitrogen fertilizer (44.76%). The system energy efficiency was 5.3±0.13 with a water productivity of 0.8±0.02 kg/m<sup>3</sup>. The share of the non-renewable energy (67.29%) is higher than the renewable. The average value of total cost of production per hectare, gross return per hectare, benefit-cost ratio and productivity of rice production calculated to be Rs. 134,540.64, Rs. 212,316.36, 1.58 and 0.04 kg/Rs, respectively. The unit cost of production was Rs. 23.45 /kg. Although economic value of major inputs of materials (33.48%), labour (31.59%) and power (34.95%) equally contribute to the cost of production, the shares of these three major inputs in term of energy were 58.32%, 1.50% and 16.24%, respectively. The energy analysis is a convenient tool to quantify efficiency of different rice farming systems overcoming the issues arise from monetary escalations across time and regional boundaries in economic efficiency analysis.
Highlights
Rice is the staple food for more than half the world’s population which mainly lives in Asia (FAO, 2014)
The rice production in industrialized countries is heavily depended on intensive use of external inputs originate from fossil fuels, such as chemical fertilizers (Barker and Herdt, 1985); in Sri Lanka, use of external inputs remains comparatively low
Komleh et al, (2011) found that Net energy value of rice production in Iran as 21,008 MJ/ha but in India it was 61,738.52 MJ/ha (Powar et al, 2017). Since these indicators are not yet known for Sri Lanka, the objective of this research was to estimate the energy values of inputs used in irrigated rice farming system such as machinery, human labour, irrigation water, chemical fertilizer, pesticides, fuels and seed paddy, the output that is paddy yield and the straw yield as a byproduct, and to conduct an economic analysis of the system
Summary
Rice is the staple food for more than half the world’s population which mainly lives in Asia (FAO, 2014). The rice production in industrialized countries is heavily depended on intensive use of external inputs originate from fossil fuels, such as chemical fertilizers (Barker and Herdt, 1985); in Sri Lanka, use of external inputs remains comparatively low. The primary objective of commercial agriculture is to maximize the profit; as a result, economic analysis is used to evaluate and compare agricultural systems in order to make decisions in selecting and starting up an efficient operation. This primary objective results intensive energy usage in agriculture with increasing human population and limited supply of arable lands. Most of the inputs used in farming systems such as inorganic fertilizer, agrochemicals, fuel and machineries are not sourced locally but imports that makes paddy farming an external resource dependent farming systems (Gamage, 2002)
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