The environmental, nutritional, and economic benefits of rice-aquaculture animal coculture in China

Abstract

Traditional rice monoculture is often energy-inefficient because of the large amount of non-renewable energy investment, and leads to negative environmental impacts. This study conducted a joint economic, energy, and life-cycle assessment (LCA) to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the economic and environmental sustainability of rice monoculture (RM), rice-crayfish coculture (RC), rice-loach coculture (RL), and rice-catfish coculture (RA). Economic analysis showed that the total profit of RM was 20,496 ¥ ha−1, while this increased by 172.3%–345.5% in coculture modes. Energy analysis showed that RM outperformed the coculture modes in net energy and energy use efficiency. LCA showed that the environmental footprint varied depending on the functional unit. The coculture modes had a larger environmental footprint than RM, on a per hectare basis across at least six of ten impact categories. The higher nutrition and economic profits meant that the coculture modes had a lower impact per nutrient density unit, and lower impact per RMB yuan across all ten impact categories compared with RM. These findings show that although the energy efficiency of the coculture mode was lower than RM, it showed promise due to its diverse foods with higher nutrition, increased economic benefits, and lower environmental impact.