Abstract
Aim of study: Reduction of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions derived from food production is imperative to meet climate change mitigation targets. Sustainable mitigation strategies also combine improvements in soil fertility and structure, nutrient recycling, and the use more efficient use of water. Many of these strategies are based on agricultural know-how, with proven benefits for farmers and the environment. This paper considers measures that could contribute to emissions reduction in subsistence farming systems and evaluation of management alternatives in the Central Andes of Ecuador. We focused on potato and milk production because they represent two primary employment and income sources in the region’s rural areas and are staple foods in Latin America.Area of study: Central Andes of Ecuador: Carchi, Chimborazo, Cañar provincesMaterial and methods: Our approach to explore the cost and the effectiveness of mitigation measures combines optimisation models with participatory methods.Main results: Results show the difference of mitigation costs between regions which should be taken into account when designing of any potential support given to farmers. They also show that there is a big mitigation potential from applying the studied measures which also lead to increased soil fertility and soil structure improvements due to the increased soil organic carbon.Research highlights: This study shows that marginal abatement cost curves derived for different agro-climatic regions are helpful tools for the development of realistic regional mitigation options for the agricultural sector.
Highlights
Agricultural Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are increasing at around 1% yr-1
There may be mitigation options with mitigation potential, but they cannot be adopted by the farmers, due to the high costs or due to socioeconomic applicability by farmers depending on the area in each zone, approximately 97,234 ton CO2e yr-1 would be mitigated nationally, equivalent to 46% reduction in agricultural emissions for a total of 210,000 ton CO2e yr-1
Benefits are excluded from the analysis and ignore the interaction of measures (MacLeod et al, 2010), since we have not found a detailed assessment of interaction factors in the literature
Summary
The mitigation measures were: M1, management of organic soils; M2, multipurpose fodder trees; M3, manure management; M4, grazing management, pasture improvement and fertilization; M5, reduced tillage + use of crop residues; M6, cropland management agronomy; and M7, nutrient management. These measures have been selected based on the results obtained in other investigations. The GHG mitigation analysis without considering adoption barriers or costs, and assuming total adoption of practices by farmers, shows that approximately 97,234 ton CO2e yr-1 would be reduced in the Central Andes ( in regard to Ecuador), that is equivalent to. Indicates that, the application of measures M4 (grazing management) and M5 (reduced tillage), would reduce agricultural emissions by 12.5% and 8.28%, respectively, of the total emissions generated by agriculture in the year 2011
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