Abstract
Eco-efficiency has become a cornerstone in improving the environmental and economic performance of farms. The joint use of life cycle assessment (LCA) and data envelopment analysis (DEA), known as LCA + DEA methodology, is an expanding area of research in this quest. LCA estimates the environmental impacts of the products or services, while DEA evaluates their efficiency, providing targets and benchmarks for the inefficient ones. Because energy consumption and environmental quality are highly interdependent, we carried out a study to examine energy efficiency and environmental emissions associated with rain-fed barley farms in Kermanshah Province, Iran. Fifty-four rain-fed barley farms were randomly selected, and production data were collected using questionnaires and interviews. DEA and LCA were used to quantify and compare environmental indicators before and after efficiency improvements were applied to the farms. To accomplish this, efficient and inefficient farms were identified using DEA. Then environmental emissions were measured again after inefficient farms reached the efficiency limit through management improvements. The results showed that by managing resource use, both energy consumption and environmental emissions can be reduced without yield loss. The initial amount of energy consumed averaged 13,443 MJ/ha while that consumed in the optimal state was determined to be 12,509 MJ/h, resulting in a savings of 934 MJ/ha. Based on the results of DEA, reductions in nitrogen fertilizer, diesel fuel, and phosphate fertilizer offered the greatest possibilities for energy savings. Combining DEA and LCA showed that efficient resource management could reduce emissions important to abiotic depletion (fossil fuels), human toxicity, marine aquatic ecotoxicity, global warming (GWP100a), freshwater aquatic ecotoxicity, and terrestrial ecotoxicity. This study contributes toward systematically building knowledge about crop production with the joint use of LCA + DEA for eco-efficiency assessment.
Highlights
Energy consumption in agriculture has increased to meet the needs of the growing human population, while available arable land has declined, and labor shortages have become more common [1,2]
The results indicate that 933.91 MJ/ha of the total input energy in rain-fed barley cultivation in the study area can be saved without a reduction in yield
In this study we analyzed the optimization of energy consumption to increase energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions in rain-fed barley production in the western region of Iran (Kermanshah Province) using data envelopment analysis (DEA) and life cycle assessment (LCA) methods
Summary
Energy consumption in agriculture has increased to meet the needs of the growing human population, while available arable land has declined, and labor shortages have become more common [1,2]. Excessive energy consumption has had consequences for agricultural sustainability and environmental quality. Consumption of agricultural inputs during agricultural operations like spraying, irrigation, fertilization, harvesting, and land preparation, discharges greenhouse gases (GHG) and other pollutants into the environment. Improving energy efficiency is fundamental for reducing environmental damage, protecting natural resources, and ensuring agricultural sustainability [3,4]. It is essential that we identify sources of GHG emissions and take specific measures to reduce them [5,6,7,8].
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