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A life cycle assessment of guar agriculture

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Abstract

Guar gum, the main product of the guar crop, is used widely in the USA as an emulsifier in the food industry and as fracturing fluid additive in the oil and gas industry. The USA is the number one global importer of guar, and interest has grown to domestically cultivate guar in the USA. Guar is an annual desert legume native to India and Pakistan. The goal of this study was to evaluate the environmental sustainability of growing guar in the USA via a life cycle analysis (LCA). The LCA helps identify the information gap for US agriculture and guide future field studies to optimize guar cultivation in the USA. This study concluded that in terms of environmental sustainability, irrigation, harvesting, and P-fertilization methods offer the most opportunity for improved guar agricultural sustainability. This is promising because one of guar’s prominent characteristics is its high water use efficiency and ability to grow in marginal soils. Lowering irrigation and water use can be implemented with simple management practice changes such as optimizing irrigation. In addition, this study shows that there is an opportunity for field trials to optimize fertilizer application rates to achieve the greatest yields. This study also found a knowledge gap with respect to carbon soil fluxes and field emissions of nitrogen and phosphorus from guar agriculture. As the USA considers adopting guar agriculture in the southwest, through research collaborations such as the USDA Sustainable Bioeconomy of Arid Regions Center of Excellence, it will be critical to evaluate irrigation to achieve maximum yields (e.g., drip, flood, sprinkler) and fill fertilizer and emissions knowledge gaps.

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Acknowledgements

Funding provided by the USDA-NIFA, Grant # 2017–68,005-26,867. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication/work are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The authors thank Pragnya Eranki for their support. The authors also acknowledge the Sustainable Bioeconomy for Arid Regions’ (SBAR) System Performance & Sustainability team and other collaborators within the SBAR project (http://sbar.arizona.edu/).

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National institute of food and agriculture, 2017-68005-26867, Amy E. Landis.

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  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Colorado School of Mines, 1500 Illinois Street, Golden, CO, 80401, USA

    VeeAnder S. Mealing & Amy E. Landis

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  1. VeeAnder S. Mealing
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  2. Amy E. Landis
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Correspondence to VeeAnder S. Mealing.

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Mealing, V.S., Landis, A.E. A life cycle assessment of guar agriculture. Clean Techn Environ Policy (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-023-02472-9

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